keno

The game Keno is considered to date from about 200 years before Christ. The name of the game “Keno” comes from Latin (“quine”) and means “five winning numbers”. The legend says that the great popularity of the game in the early centuries helped raise the funds to build the Great Wall Of China. That ancient Chinese game was brought to west America by a group of Chinese emigrants in the middle of 19th century. Most sources claim that they were Chinese sailors trying to help for the building of the American trans-continental railroad. Although it was illegal, Keno prospered among the Chinese emigrants – especially in north of California and in some other districts in west America. In the beginning the Americans called the game “Chinese lottery”. Many people there became interested in the game but had difficulties with playing it because of the Chinese characters. And for that reason those characters were replaced by Arabic numbers so the game to become understandable from more people. The name of the game was changed by the operators to Race Horse Keno in the beginning of 30’s because the state of Nevada legalized almost all gambling games except the lottery (what Keno was). Since then each number in Keno was deemed to be like a horse where people can bet. Many Keno operators still call the game “races”. When the American government created a law taxing off track betting, the name of the game was again changed – this time to just Keno.