Keno History

the h history starts more than 3000 years ago, in China, when Chou Kung used it to fund the building of the great wall. keno history continues in 1530, when a similar game called "La Lotto de Firenze" was played in Florence, Italy. This game became very popular, and evolved into the Italian National Lottery in 1870, which is played until today.

One of the pirate version of the game in keno history was called "White Pigeon Ticket", and involved the sending of tickets, bets and winnings through carrier pigeons. This was a form of gambling not yet known in casino's gambling.

American Keno history started around 1850, when Chinese immigrants, coming to the US, brought the game over when they came to help build the railroads and work in the mines. The name given then to Keno was "Chinese Lottery". The problem with Chinese lottery was that it used Chinese letters on the tickets. In the beginning of the 20th century, Keno Chinese characters were replaced with numbers.

Keno soon spread through the US, until it was made illegal during the 1930's. To avoid prosecution, The name of the lottery was changed into Keno, in order for it to resemble a race game. This is the name that remained along Keno history, until this day.

The full name of the game was Race Horse Keno, and the game itself had characteristics of race games, that some remained through Keno history. On the Keno tickets, instead of numbers, horses' names were written down. Furthermore, the draws were called races. The developer of Keno, which is well known to Keno history enthusiasts, was Warren Nelson, the man who opened Nevada's first Keno game, back in 1936. Since that time Keno has been played in various online gambling casinos all around the world.

The earliest numbers used in Keno history, were written on paper slips, and were folded or placed in small boxes. The paper slips were then replaced with wooden balls called "peas". Then ping pong balls, placed in cages, were adopted as the common way of Keno betting.

Article Submitted by:
Harry Cohen, Editor.

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