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The Origins of Keno

Keno is a popular game in the U.S. that has it's similarities with Bingo and Lotto. You might even think that because it seems like a hybrid of Bingo and Lotto, it's just a new game.

However, this game was around way back during China's Han Dynasty on 187 B.C. This game was called the "Game of The White Dove" in Chinese times.

It was introduced by the Chinese military leader Cheung Leung. It was also introduced when the dynasty was in its hard times and the provisions were failing. They wanted to tax the people more. They planned to use the money to strengthen the weak finance of the army. But what they planned did not exactly materialize.

So Chinese being the shrewd wise men that they are, decided to develop a game of chance. They asked the people to guess characters and in exchange would risk their properties. However, they also have the chance of winning property.

They chose 120 characters for the whole game and 8 characters were used for one subdivision. If the people (one whole subdivision lost) they lose 3 li of their property. A li is considered to be 500 meters, so they would lose 1500 meters of their property. If they won, they will be rewarded with 10 taels. Taels are a measuring word for currency and weights by the Chinese. In short, the people were only asked to wager a little to gain more.

With that tempting concept, lots of people played the game. It was believed that for only a span of 10 days, they were able to gain a thousand silvers. So in the span of a decade, they accumulated more wealth.

The game eventually landed in the United States together with the Chinese immigrants. The number of Chinese characters also was reduced when it arrived in the States. Maybe the characters got lost at sea.

Even though it was illegal, the game still thrived in big cities like San Francisco. What else is new? There's no stuff that's illegal that doesn't intrigue people more. It eventually became known as Chinese Lottery.

Eventually Americans became interested with the game, but had a hard time differentiating the characters. To avoid confusion and entice more players, Keno operators replaced the characters with Arabic symbols.

Even though most gambling games were legalized keno wasn't one of them. This was because it was considered to be a form of lottery. Lottery wasn't legalized until the early 20th century.

This game probably survived through the ages because many people adored the game. The game was loved by most people, because ever since, the concept of betting small and winning big has always been maintained.