Every online casino offers you online casino keno, a great casino game that doesn’t get the credit that other online casino games get. Now you may think that keno is some kind of Chinese game that you may not be able to figure out. On the contrary keno is an extremely popular gambling game that is widely played by players not only in China, but all over the world too. You can play casino games keno at top online casinos like Cherry Red Casino and Casino Las Vegas.
The history of the keno casino game originates from ancient China. Keno is said to have been invented by Cheung Leung, one of the rulers of the Han Dynasty. The game was extremely popular in China. In fact legend has it that the game was so popular that the winnings from this game actually helped Cheung Leung to fund his army and even the building of the Great Wall of China! Now that is a great achievement for any gambling game.
Keno is more or less like a lottery game and was initially played with 80 Chinese characters which were painted on sheets and used to determine the winner. The game is pretty much like Bingo. What happens is that players buy cards or tickets which have a series of numbers depicted on it. The numbers are depicted in 8 rows of 10 numbers, which makes a total of 80 numbers on each card. Players place their wagers before the game. A caller picks out 20 numbers randomly from a glass “bubble”, like in bingo. The players must mark out the numbers that are called out on their ticket. The wins are determined based on the payout tables. The numbers are matched with the payouts and the player can collect his or her winnings.
It was around the 1800’s when the game was brought to America by Chinese railroad workers. When the game reached America, there had to be a few changes made in order for the game to fit in. The first and most important change that was brought about was replacing the Chinese characters with Arabic numerals, this way people could relate to the game better and understand it too.
Gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931, but lottery games were not. And therefore keno came an illegal gambling game. But that didn’t stop gambling operators from offering the game to players. They came up with the ingenious idea of renaming the game to racehorse keno. Instead of just using the 80 Arabic numbers, the operators devised an ingenious way to escape the law. Each number corresponded to a certain racehorse and the game was called Racehorse Keno. Though the game really had nothing to do to race horses or racing, it was good enough to slip through the cracks of the law.
Later lottery games were legalized and the name of the game was once again changed to Keno. Today the game is widely played at land based casinos as well as online casinos. In fact the online version has a lot of perks compared to the land based casinos. First of all online casino players get a wonderful welcome bonus for signing up at the casino. This gives you a good amount to begin gambling with. And you continue to get all kinds of bonuses for playing at the online casinos.
Another great thing about playing keno at online casinos is that the graphics and designs are so interesting. The games are very entertaining and you can play the game right from home. You don’t have to travel all the way to a land based casino and spend all that money on food and beverages. Instead you can make yourself a drink at home and have a peaceful evening playing keno online.
One of my most favorite attributes of playing keno online is that you get to play the game for absolutely free. That’s the greatest advantage of online casinos. You can actually play the games using the ‘practice’, ‘free’ or ‘fun’ mode and get the hang of the game or just have some fun at no risk at all. Free keno games online are a great way to have fun without spending a single penny. And when you feel like it, you can switch to the real money games and make some really good money with keno.
The pay tables at different casinos vary so you should be sure to know what the payouts in the game is and what the house edge is too. There are different kinds of bets you can place in a game of Keno. Here’s a look at what they are:
Straight ticket: This is the simplest kind of bet placed in the online casino game. Here the player selects the numbers he wishes to bet on. Usually a player can pick up to 15 numbers. But some casinos allow you pick more numbers, even up to 40. But you must know that the more numbers you pick the smaller your payouts will be. After you pick the numbers you want to bet on you can place the amount you want to wager.
Split ticket: In this kind of a bet the player is allowed to play several games on a single keno ticket. What the player does is use a circle or a line to indicate where he wants to split the ticket. The advantage of playing the split ticket is that the players gets to choose a total of 30 numbers, 15 each from each of the parts of the ticket. However the disadvantage is that the same numbers can’t be used for both groups.
Way ticket: This is something like a straight ticket except that the players are allowed to play several sets of numbers which can all be played at once. This allows players to play more numbers at once, but on a single ticket. This is a much cheaper option too.
Combination ticket: This ticket also gives you more ways to win. This ticket is a lot cheaper and allows you to place wagers on a number of combinations of numbers. The combo ticket is like a split ticket, but it allows you to make a number of straight wagers which can be combined on the same ticket.
So now that you know how to play keno, log on to any of the popular online casinos, like Noble Casino, and try your luck today.