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The game begins with the following: a "keno runner" calls "keno" and offers to carry the wagers to the booth. The keno runner collects the wagers and the "inside tickets" of the players. A keno wager form filled out by the customer is called the "inside ticket". After that he takes the wager and that ticket and carries them to the counter. In return the player receives an "outside ticket" - an official wager receipt. Before the game begins each player should ckeck up his ticket. Any errors not corrected before the balldraw begins are not normally rectified.
When all the 20 numbers are known, the winning tickets are paid. The payouts differ in defferent casinos. If you have, for example, a four-spot ticket, you are paid 1:1 if 2 numbers hit, 1:5 if 3 numbers hit and 1:120! if all the 4 numbers hit. But in another casino, the three-number hit might pay and all four 5, and in another the payoffs might be and 0. Because of the variation, no payback percentage is common enough to be called average. Paybacks range from below 70 percent to more than 80 percent.
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. Keno appeared in China in 187 BC. But the appearance of keno is wrapped in a mystery. There exist several opinions.
One theory is that Cheung Leung of the Han Dynasty introduced the game when his city was at war for several years and was beginning to run out of money and supplies. The head of state had no money support of his subjects. 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. Thus Cheung's army was saved. It is also credited for providing resources and helping to fund the massive undertaking of building the Great Wall! 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.
The keno board didn't always look the same way. The Chinese classic characters were used instead of numbers. Originally, as many as 120 characters were used in the game, and only after it left China would the number drop to a more familiar 80.
In the middle of the 19th keno was brought to the US. Though the game was considered illegal, the new Chinese immigrants still played it. 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.
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