» Keno Casino Game

Keno, a bingo-like or a lottery-like gambling game, is played nowadays at practically every casino. Keno appeared in China in 187 BC. Still the origins of the game are really a bit of a mystery. There can be found several different opinions.
According to one assumption the game was invented during a war in China in order to supply the army with money. The city residents didn't want to give their money to support the unworthy aim of the emperor. So Cheung was left scratching his head as to how to generate the necessary finances to continue his brutal battles. After some considerations he created the game of keno, which immediately got very popular and thus profitable for the state. The game was a success and it is cited as a major reason for the victory of Cheung's forces. It also contributed resources to building the Great Wall! Later keno was known as the White Pigeon game as people of surrounding villages were informed of the winning numbers by carrier pigeons.
At first Chinese classic characters instead of numbers were printed on the keno boards. The total of 120 characters was used in the game but the number reduced to 80 in the long run.
Keno appeared in the US in the 19th century as a lot of Chinese people came there to work on the railroads. At the beginning keno was out of law. But it wasn't a real obstacle for the immigrants. It continued to use Chinese characters and thus obviously didn't enter popular mainstream American culture until it was modified to include the numerical system.