» Versions Of The History Of Keno

One of the most popular games at any casino is Keno. It is a game similar to the big state or provincial lotteries. This game originates from China where it was first introduced by Cheung Leung 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 citizens refused to contribute additional funds to the fruitless cause of the war. 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. Thus Cheung's army was saved. It also contributed resources to building the Great Wall! The game soon became known as the White Pigeon game, since carrier pigeons were used to inform surrounding towns and villages of the winning numbers.
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. The fact that gambling games were forbidden didn't prevent the Chinese from playing and spreading it all over the States. 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.