Vista Casino - History of Keno

If you want to play keno - a game pretty much like the lotto - why not find out a little bit about the history of keno before you start playing? You might not necessarily improve your success in the game if you do learn the history of keno, but keno players have said that they find it interesting anyway and on some level it adds value to their enjoyment and pleasure of the game.

Well, for a start, keno is certainly not a new game. Keno has been around for over 3,000 years but it has taken on different names. The reason its name has been in flux is because in some places, historically keno was illegal and thus as a way to try and not get caught as it were, the name kept getting changed. But most people who know anything keno and the history of keno agree that the game originated in China, in an attempt by the King to find funding for the Great Wall! So that's a pretty nice idea to mull over while playing the game.

Throughout the history of keno, apart from the name changing the actual game has been altered quite a bit too. The game began solely with Chinese characters - 120 of them at that! But before the game of keno moved on from China, the number was reduced to 90 and it was at that time that keno arrived in America with the influx on 19th century Chinese railroad employed immigrants. There was a further reduction in characters at that time to 80.

When you start looking at the history of keno you will find how popular the game remained in America when it arrived there, even though it was not a legal game. It became especially popular in San Francisco and was pretty much seen as the Chinese lottery and it was at that time that a whole slew of English speaking Americans showed interest in the game but it was problematic for them due to the complexity of the Chinese characters that they had never studied. So some time later, the characters were replaced by Arabic numbers to entice more players.

One would have thought that by the 1930s when gambling was legalized in Nevada, the popularity of keno would have spread even faster, but unfortunately the legal gambling umbrella didn't include the lottery and there was no way that keno could have been seen as anything else. So in an attempt to continue to play the game anyway, the name was changed again to Race Horse Keno and thus each number in the game was represented by a horse. This part of the history of keno has spread until today as the game is still sometimes know as races. But then the US government caught on again and track betting was taxed so the name was changed to keno.

Another part of the history of keno is the payout limit of the game. In 1963 in Nevada it was $25,000 but this was doubled to $50,000 in 1979. Within 10 years the cap was eliminated, enabling casinos to set whatever payout they wish.

So the next time you check out a fun keno game to play, try to cast your mind a little over to the history of casino and remember about all those keno players over 3,000 years ago. Think about what was going through the keno players minds from days of old and try and put yourself in their position. Enjoy the game today, like they did then and the thousands of people around the world do today!