» Keno Lottery Gambling 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. But the appearance of keno is wrapped in a mystery. Several different versions exist.
The generally accepted theory is that the game was invented during some war in China when the army needed money badly. The city residents didn't want to give their money to support the unworthy aim of the emperor. Cheung had nothing else to do but to develop some new way of taking money out of the people. Cheung found an excellent solution to this problem: he created a very popular game - keno. 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 boards of the past consisted of the Chinese characters but not of the numbers. 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. 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.