Keno is a very old game that is believed to be more than 2000 years old. Much of the history is however shrouded in mystery and it is hard to say for sure were the history begin and myth begin. There are historic evidence for the history but most of it is only know from one source and can not be verified from several sources. As is often the case with ancient texts and documents. Below you will be able to find more information about the history of Keno as i is outlined in the ancient sources.

According to a 2000 year old scroll keno was invented by a man named Cheung Leung. He invented the game in an attempt to save his city and to raise money for the defense of the city. The Population was tired of taxes and refused to provide more support to the war fund. The army quickly ran out of money and supplies as the enemy made it ever closer towards the city. Keno did according tot he scroll provided enough revenue to support the army and the city was saved. The game then supposedly quickly spread to different parts of China. Everywhere it spread it provided well needed cash to the city coffers. It is said that Keno helped fund the Great wall of china. To what degree is however not known. The game was at this time known as the White Pigeon Game. The name was used since White pigeon was used to send information about the game out from the central cites to smaller surrounding cities.

When the game was first invented it did not use numbers like it does today. Instead it used the 80 first symbols from the in China very popular thousand character classic poem. The poem is written in rhyme and contain 1000 characters. Each of which is only used once. The poem was used to help children learn to read and write the characters. The poem was also used as a way to count from 1-1000. Each character had a numerical value based on where they where placed in the poem. It can therefore be argue that the game all the way back to its origin was using the number 1-80. They were just written in another way back then.

The game was introduced in the US by Chinese workers working on the rail roads. They played the game to entertain themselves when not working and as a way to try to cling to their native culture while being abroad. Keno gambling was at this time illegal due to anti-gambling laws. This would however not discourage the Chinese from playing the game that became known as Chinese lottery in the US. Later when the gambling laws became more liberal in 1931 the name changed to ‘horse race keno’. The game would keep this name for a few years until new tax rules made the operators change the name again. This time simply to Keno, the name the game still bears today

In recent year keno made the transition onto the internet and a lot of internet gambling and casino operators do today offer keno gambling online. This means that the game today is a lot more accessible than it ever been before. Today you can play the game anywhere, anytime as long as you got access to an internet connection and have registered an account at a Keno gambling provider.