The game of keno, which has the features of Bingo and any lottery, is nowadays popular all over the world. 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 head of state had no money support of his subjects. So Cheung was left scratching his head as to how to generate the necessary finances to continue his brutal battles. 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! 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.
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.
In the middle of the 19th keno was brought to the US. 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.

 

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