Keno, a bingo-like or a lottery-like gambling game, is played nowadays at practically every casino. 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.
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 the emperor tried to work out a strategy of generating the necessary finances. 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 also contributed resources to 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.
The game arrived in the US in the mid 1800's when thousands of Chinese immigrants came to work in the mines and on the railroad. 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.

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