Keno

The history

The game has been around for quite a long time. Legends say that the birth of keno as a lottery game saved a city on the brink of destruction in time of war. Other legends say that the popularity of the game funded the construction of the Great Wall of China. And, although we have no original historical documents that show it, using the lottery as a way of funding public institutions was common in China around the XIX century and was most likely inspired by keno.

The Name

The word keno probably has French (or Latin) roots (quini – five numbers). Before the middle of the XIX century, Chinese lottery was not documented, until the government of Macau decided to start issuing lottery licenses. Stories say that official results of keno games from major Chinese cities in the past were sent by carrier pigeons to close villages. These results were called “white dove tickets” or baak-gap-piu in Cantonese which is spelled pakapoo in Western countries. Pakapoo was the name of a XIX-century Chinese lottery game popular in Australia which probably gave birth to modern keno.

Originally, the Chinese used printed sheet characters taken from the poem Thousand Characters Classic (usually the first 80) which was used to teach the Chinese language to children from VI century onwards. Keno was quite popular in China in the XIX century. Thanks to the thousands of Asians which helped build the First Transcontinental Railroad during the same time, it reached the USA. There it laid out the foundations for modern keno in casinos.