Keno: Chinese Lottery through the Centuries
Keno is not the same game that we now know back when it was first created. The way the game was played has gone through its share of changes, as well as its name.
Earliest accounts of keno trace back to the Han Dynasty at around 200 B.C. An ancient Chinese city was facing attacks from both sides against invaders, and the city's ruler, Cheung Leung, was leading the fight. Before long, the defending army was dwindling in number, and the people were no longer willing to pay more taxes to fund the war effort. The people were slowly getting tired and disillusioned by the long-drawn out fight against invaders and were adamantly against paying more taxes, a thing that they made very clear to their rulers.
It was up to Cheung Leung to look for a plan to fund his war, and at the same time prevent a mass revolt that could result to him and his men facing attacks not only from outside but also from inside his own city. . He soon decided to create a lottery that will double as a fund raiser to increase the funds for the city's war efforts. Using an age-old Chinese poem called the Thousand Character CLassic, Cheung Leung came up with a game that required players to make a guess and if the guess proved to be right that player was given a prize.
The Thousand Character classic was a popular Chinese poem back in the Han dynasty, and it was written by notable poet Zhou Xingsi. The poem was a popular teaching tool used to help Chinese children learn how to count, add, or subtract. It was composed of one thousand Chinese symbols, not one which was repeated all throughout the entirety of the poem. Cheung made subdivisions of eight from 120 characters from the game. If the players guessed the contents of a subdivision correctly, If the guess was correct the player was usually given ten taels as a prize.
The game soon became a hit, and it rose to popularity as the game of the White pigeon, since operators used white doves to relay messages of games, combinations, and winners' names all across China. It became so popular that soon Cheung Leung made enough money to continue his fight, and more came, just enough to help build The Great Wall of China.
Keno also became popular in America, where it was introduced by Chinese immigrants, sailors, and railroad workers. It was a widely-played game in San Francisco, which had a large Chinese community. People referred to the game as the Chinese lottery. By the early 20th century, they replaced the Chinese symbols with numbers , to make the game more American-friendly.
When the Nevada state legislature decided to legalize gambling, they did not include keno, which was clearly a form of gambling. TO solve this little dilemma the operators decided to give the game a new name, and that was horse race keno. The rationale behind the move was that horse racing was already legal at that time. It was only when the government decided to tax off-track betting did the operators felt it safe to revert then name back to keno, and the name of the game has been keno ever since.