» Keno In France

Keno, a game similar to the big state or provincial lotteries, is easy to play and one of the most popular games in any casino. This game originates from China where it was first introduced by Cheung Leung in 187 BC. Still the origins of the game are really a bit of a mystery. Several different versions exist.
The most commonly taken opinion is that Cheung Leung invented this game when his army ran out of money during some war. The citizens refused to contribute additional funds to the fruitless cause of the war. Cheung had nothing else to do but to develop some new way of taking money out of the people. Finally, Cheung had the brilliant idea of creating a game that would appeal to the huge numbers of people under his command, while simultaneously generating a bit of cash to cover his expenses. Keno helped Cheung win that war. The Great Wall was also built with the help of the money that gave keno! Keno was later given a different name - the White Pigeon game. That was not for nothing: carrier pigeons informed the surrounding towns and villages of the winning numbers.
In the past rather than having a board of just numbers on the original keno boards, they used classic Chinese characters. If at first the game included 120 characters, this number dropped to 80 in the course of time.
Keno appeared in the US in the 19th century as a lot of Chinese people came there to work on the railroads. Although initially outlawed, Keno continued to be played in secrecy by these new 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.