Keen on Keno

Scott and Michelle McIlvane, owners of the Lazy River Cantina, are excited to be one of two places offering an opportunity to play keno, which debuted October 6.

Keno is a lottery-like gambling game often played at casinos, bars, convenience stores and venues that offer some form of legalized gambling. It can also be provided as a game in some state lotteries.

In the classic game, players choose numbers ranging from one through 80. After all the players make their wagers, 20 numbers are drawn at random either with a ball machine similar to ones used for lotteries or with a random number generator that is on screen.

Each venue sets its own series of payouts called "pay tables". The player is paid based on how many numbers were chosen (either player selection or the terminal picking the numbers), the number of matches and the amount of the wager.

"We feel so privileged to have been picked," Michelle said. "Maryland had it there and we used to see it in Ocean City all the time. It was a lot of fun to play."

There are a wide variety of keno pay tables depending on the casino, usually with a larger house edge (the casino profit expressed as the percentage of the player's original bet), than other games–ranging from less than four percent to over 35 percent in online play and 20 to 40 percent at in-person establishments. By way of comparison, the typical house edge for non-slot casino games is under five percent.

"I just paid five dollars and won $81 dollars; no kidding," Michelle said.

 By all accounts, the game originated in China. Legend has it, the invention of the game saved an ancient city in time of war. Its widespread popularity helped raise funds to build the Great Wall of China. In modern China, the idea of using lotteries to fund a public institution was not accepted before the late 19th century.

The Chinese lottery was not documented before 1847 when the Portuguese government of Macao decided to grant a license to lottery operators.

Results of keno games, in great cities, were sent to outlying villages and hamlets by carrier pigeons. Resulting in its Chinese name, literally meaning "white dove tickets" in Mandarin.

The Chinese played the game using sheets printed with Chinese characters.The first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic, the Chinese nation's earliest and most widespread basic literacy text, was often used to select the winner.

Eventually, Chinese immigrants introduced keno to the West when they sailed across the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century to work on construction of the Transcontinental Railroad The name was Westernized into "Puck-Apu". By 1866 it had already become a widely popular gambling game in Houston, Texas, under the name 'Keno'.

Keno payouts are based on how many numbers the player chooses and how many of those numbers are "hit", multiplied by the proportion of the player's original wager to the "base rate" of the pay table. Typically, the more numbers a player chooses and the more numbers hit, the greater the payout. However, some pay tables compensate for hitting a lesser number of spots. Payouts vary widely by venue. Most allow pay table wagers of one through 20 numbers, but some limit the choice to only one through 10, 12 and 15 numbers–or "spots" as keno aficionados call the numbers selected.

The probability of a player hitting all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket is approximately one in 3.5 quintillion  (one in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320).

If a person should be so fortunate to hit all 20, there is a lot of money to be won.

The game available at the Lazy River Cantina is through the Wyoming Lottery (WyoLotto) and is governed by state law, rules, regulations and directives. There are 80 numbers to choose from on a ticket. Wagers, starting at one dollar per draw, can be placed. You also choose how many consecutive draws to play. Twenty numbers are drawn every four minutes from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

"The company just finished putting them in," Scott said. "I was told keno has been in Wyoming two months and they have already paid out $53,000."

Scott said it was a fun way to pass the time and he was glad to have it in the Lazy River Cantina as winter comes knocking.

"It is just another way we want people to enjoy coming here," Michelle said. "Keno is a compliment to what we are already doing to have fun in our place."