Keno history
Keno was originally known as the "China Lottery" (Chinese Lottery). This simple form of the lottery got its name, since it first appeared in ancient China. "China Lottery" originated from a tutorial, based on nursery rhymes. Having learned this long poem, children memorized a thousand hieroglyphs, necessary for reading. The poem contained a thousand non-repeating lines and was called "A Thousand Classical Hieroglyphs" (“The Thousand Character Classic”).
"China Lottery" appeared in 200 r. BC, when legendary Chinese general Cheung Leung turned these simple nursery rhymes into gambling. To create a betting system, he used the first 120 hieroglyphs from the "Thousand Classical Hieroglyphs" (“The Thousand Character Classic”). Participants, who marked the correct hieroglyphs with a brush and ink, won prizes. Money, received from the lottery, as planned by Cheung Leung, they were supposed to go to the needs of the army and strengthen the general's power, which was shaky at that time.
Keno vocabulary
Edge ticket (Edge Ticket) - ticket, where all numbers are marked on the edge.
Exacta - keno ticket, which can be played in two games; sometimes special bonus payments are offered on such tickets when certain numbers appear.
Game without money (Free Play) - Keno ticket, according to which, when winning, instead of money, the player gets a chance to play again.
Group (Group) - all spots, marked on the ticket.
Hit (Hit) - number match, marked on the ticket with the number, dropped out as a result of the rally.
Domestic ticket (Inside Ticket) - ticket, in which the player marked the numbers and which sent them to the window of the keno agent. The ticket is called domestic, while the player is waiting for computer confirmation of the selected numbers and printout of the check.
Jackpot (Jackpot) - bonus amount of money, paid out as the top prize in a keno game series.
Keno screen (Keno Board) - also called "Big Screen" (“Big Board”) - screen, on which numbers are shown, Keno drawn in the drawing. Such a screen can be placed almost anywhere - in the keno hall, in the casino, in bars and anywhere else, where are the keno players.
Keno Hall (Keno Lounge) - special hall, where keno players can sit, relax and watch, how the computer determines the winning numbers. This room has everything you need to play - booklets with rules, blank keno tickets and pencils.
Agent Keno (Keno Writer) - the colloquial name of the clerk, issuing a prize, printing tickets and interacting with keno players.
King (King) - one single number, marked on the ticket.
Left-handed / Right-hand ticket (Left-Right Ticket) - ticket, in which the player, placing a bet, tries to guess - the winning numbers will be located on the left or right side of the ticket.
Keno reusable ticket (Multi Game Keno Ticket) - ticket, with which you can play on multiple games, sometimes up to a thousand.
Payout booklet (Paybook) - booklet, which describes the rules of the game, and also the system, by which casino pays winnings. Usually such booklets are in keno halls or at special lottery windows and counters..
Pay (Payoff) - amount of money, payable to the player upon winning.
Paytable (Pay Table) - printed or published table, in which the system of payments for each of the winning options is described.
Series of games (Progressive) - game, in which the main prize is not paid after each game, but postponed to the next round, constantly increasing in size, and its amount is paid in full based on the results of a series of games.
"Quick choice" (Quick Pick) - ticket, on which numbers are randomly selected and marked by a computer, not manually by the player.
Random number generator (Random Number Generator) - program, randomly picking keno numbers.
RNG game (Random Number Generator) - Keno game, where the numbers are "pulled" by the random number generator.
Runner (Runner) - casino employee, which collects bets and pays winnings to players, not sitting in the keno hall, and in other halls of the casino.
Video (Spot) - number, marked by the player on the ticket.
Upper / Lower ticket (Top-Bottom Ticket) - ticket, in which the player places a bet on 40 largest or smallest rooms, and gets a prize depending on the number of hits.
Video keno (Video Keno) - keno, played on an electronic terminal, numbers are "pulled" by a random number generator.
Rate (Wager) - amount, which the player decides to take when playing keno.
Way - another way to bet in keno, usually the result of combining two or more numbers or spots on a combined ticket.
Way ticket (Way Ticket) - ticket, allowing different betting (bet on groups or combinations of numbers) and thus, allowing you to win in different "ways".
First question – tip in china
Tipping is not generally accepted in restaurants in China. In many good restaurants this is strictly prohibited.. Remember, that you can "substitute" the waiter, and he can just be fired.
Chinese believe, that the problem of waiters' earnings is a matter of the relationship between the waiter and his employer.
The Chinese attitude towards tips is different from ours. Our principle can be described as follows: "Tipping is given to waiters and porters". Think for yourself, where is the logic? Why these two professions? Why tipping is not allowed for sales assistants, wipers or bus drivers?
We have this tradition, and no logic, and the Chinese have a principle. It is customary to give tips here only to employees of the lowest paid professions., i.e, those people, who really need money for tea.
Waiters are not "poor", and they are not entitled to a tip. Porters are another matter, for them even a coin in 1 Chinese yuan will be a joy. Our tourists often leave coins in the hotel room, to get out there better. This rarely works in China., cleaning ladies don't take this money.
Second question – what is this shiny square on the checks?
This is a China-wide check lottery. She is instant, i.e, erase the top layer and see, what did you win.
Or rather, look, that you won nothing at all. The chances of even a scanty win don't reach 1%.
Our friends, residing in China, say, what do they gain 5 RMB about once a year. And that, these 5 yuan can not be handed, but only you can replenish your mobile phone account. As far as we know, no big winnings in this lottery are drawn at all.
Inscription on the check in Chinese characters, and you won't understand, that you won something. We still need to solve the problem of translation.
For some time, the inscriptions were replaced by numbers (in the photo on the left), and what is the system now, we don't even know. If you are very interested, what did you win, then at the hotel at the reception, show the check to the hotel employee and ask, what to do with it.
Not all checks in China contain this lottery box.. For this, the institution needs to buy a special receipt paper., which is more expensive than usual. The restaurant can buy this paper, maybe buy a regular.
The most interesting, what is a lottery window also happens on theater tickets, cinema or sightseeing. It is definitely not on tickets for the Beijing subway or Shanghai subway, we can't vouch for the rest of the cities. On tickets to the Great Wall of China, eg, it is, and on tickets to the Forbidden City there is no.
An extremely interesting case from life
In the city of Shenzhen, one incident happened to yours truly, which I really want to talk about, and it will be interesting for you to read it.
Walking through the city at night, i stumbled upon a building, which included many young people. To me, naturally, became interesting, and I went after the crowd.
It turned out to be a night club. There was a metal detector frame and security at the entrance.. There were no problems with face control, and they didn't take money from me.
There was a bar and a dance floor inside, where people danced cheerfully. BUT, what kind of music did they do it to! It was a dance version of the song “Du hast!”By the German rock band Rammstein.
To be honest, before that moment I had no idea, that Rammstein songs may have dance versions. It turned out, is it possible, much is possible in China, many surprises and some shocks. I will not be surprised, if they stage a Chinese opera based on Eugene Onegin.
After looking at it all, I went to the restroom, which I have long wanted to get into. I was blocked by a porter in the restroom. Unclear, why is this employee needed in the toilet? What is he doing there? It turned out, he accompanies visitors to their destination. I understand, what is funny to dear readers now. And I was not very funny, since I'm not used to, that someone accompanies me in this place.
The receptionist looked very ridiculous. He was in a multi-colored overcoat, very similar to hotel staff. In general, this whole situation looked ridiculous.. Fortunately, during the process itself, he does not accompany visitors. So he was very happy 5 yuan tip, which I gave him. Everybody tipped him, seem to be, that he has no salary at all, he makes good money anyway.
Online poker and betting in China
China with 1 june 2018 r. introduced a complete ban on the activities of online poker rooms and casinos, but their number is only increasing, and the volume of traffic is also growing, attracted by the industry.
Asian online poker apps are the number one trend in the online poker world in 2018 year. European players loved them as much as the Chinese.. Asian poker rooms differ in interface: they look like this, what European online poker rooms looked like a few years ago. This indicates, that online poker in Asia began to develop not so long ago.
The most famous online poker rooms in China - PokerMaster and PPPoker have an English version of the application, therefore, foreigners can use them without difficulty.
As for betting in the Middle Kingdom, then there is also the problem of access to betting sites. They are regularly blocked by ISPs, so many people use mirror sites or VPN. Most players in China use cryptocurrency and electronic payment systems, such as Skrill and NETELLER with VipDeposits. They can be used to instantly transfer money to bank accounts in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau.
Keno Hall
There are usually keno lounges in casinos, where you can see the drawn numbers on the big screen. Sometimes it is a video monitor, sometimes just a board with flashing numbers. The keno room also houses the agent's counter, as well as markers and slips. In the UK, these slips are sometimes called tickets. (tickets).There is a special graph at the bottom of each keno slip, where you should write the number of numbers you selected. You also need to write the amount there, which you want to put. This is to avoid disputes in case of wrongly marked numbers., how can this be, but in Europe some keno lotteries play out so quickly, that between draws there is practically no time to mark numbers on the ticket.
Online betting for the brave
Almost all forms of online betting are banned in China. Now the authorities have tightened the fight against online bookmakers, обязав местные администрации лотерей выявлять и инициировать их блокировку. Those, who works directly from the PRC, if found, serious problems and prison sentences await. At the same time, as an experiment, the Ministry of Finance, by a special decree, allowed several lottery operators, led by 500.com and China SMG network (in fact, these are divisions of the sports lottery) serve customers online.
Of course, All Western online bookmakers are also considered illegal. There is even punishment for using them., but it is rarely used. Law enforcement officers are busy identifying and disclosing underground casinos and offices, that's why it is their organizers who are arrested, not players. To suppress online gaming in China, they simply block access to bookmaker sites.
But such prohibitions can always be circumvented.. Only one Bet365 in PRC has more 1000 mirrors! And it's no coincidence, After all, Bet365 was at the center of a big scandal in the UK precisely because of the acceptance of bets from users in China. As a result, the company was forced to leave the British jurisdiction to Gibraltar.. So those companies, who do not deny access to Chinese customers and accept their credit cards, work quite calmly in the PRC market, albeit illegal. But the player, in principle, can be fined in 3000 yuan (nearly 500 dollars) to impose is a lot by Chinese standards.
Keno's introduction in North America
In North America, no one heard of the "China Lottery" until 19 in., when immigrants from China brought this game to California. Immigrants to America were attracted by the Gold Rush. However, instead of, to wash gold, they had to work for little money on the construction of railways. It was then that the "China Lottery" became popular in California, and then in
Nevada, where the gambling industry was already in full swing. The term keno originally referred to the game of bingo. In America, the "China Lottery" was called "Keno Racing" - this was the way the gambling business in Nevada avoided legal trouble., since lotteries were banned at that time, but horse racing - no. The casino owners staged fictitious "horse racing", and each number on the ticket represented a "horse". Players had to guess, which "horse" will win. Even now, keno is sometimes called "horse racing", and casino players can say, that they "went to the races".
Originally for playing Keno Racing 80 numbers were written on pieces of paper and laid out in cardboard boxes. For each draw, the boxes were drawn 20 leaflets with numbers. Later, boxes and leaves were replaced with wooden balls., who were nicknamed "peas" (“peas”). Then these balls were in turn replaced with bouncing ping-pong balls., on which numbers were applied.
In the American version of China Lottery, the group of numbers, which the player marks on the keno ticket, called spot. for example, player, choosing 8 spots in a 4x dollar ticket, raffles a $ 4 ticket with 8 spots. If the participant chooses 30 numbers by 1 dollar, then he raffles a one dollar ticket with 30 spots. The term "spot" was first used in the original version of the "China Lottery". There, participants marked the numbers on the ticket with a brush and ink, therefore the selected numbers were called "spot" - "speck". Ink was used to, to make the bet final, and the player could not change his choice at the last moment. A couple of casinos still exist in Las Vegas, where spots are marked on the keno ticket in the traditional way, while in other casinos a hole is punched in the lottery slip in place of the selected number.
Keno in modern America
IN 1963 r. the US government has imposed a corporate tax, derived from racing, Keno Races also fell under the same tax.. Then the casino dropped the word "horse racing" from the name of the lottery, and she became known as just keno. To 1989 playing keno in Nevada couldn't win more 50 000 dollars, however, since that time, jackpot amounts have skyrocketed, and it has been around this time that keno began to gain popularity on the Internet., and various variations of keno have become popular all over the world. Lotteries of this type are often used by the authorities to raise money for military and civilian needs., as well as for charity. These games are drawn every day or every week., and the winning numbers are printed in newspapers or announced on radio and television.
Gambling is prohibited in China
As a relic of the communist past and semi-communist present, there is a ban on gambling in the country. This applies to all games, except for the lottery, which, thanks to such an exception, enjoys incomparable popularity in the Middle Kingdom. The state maintains a whole army of officials, preventing the development of underground gambling. Moreover, the punishment is generally stricter, than in Europe.
The online gambling sector is being fought with equal enthusiasm. China, as the owner of the famous "Golden Shield", tracking and filtering out unwanted content from the Internet, can effectively fight lawbreakers. In this way, local organizers of online bookmakers are at great risk. Players are usually not penalized, but getting to the website of the western bookmaker is not so easy.
Betting shop in Chinese
Buy a lottery ticket of one form or another, you can fill it in and place a bet in any branch of the sports lottery, which are in all rather big cities. They look very much like European betting offices, no exotic. They also sell traditional lottery tickets with scratch stripes., place a bet on virtual sports via the slot machine. The size of the sports lottery network is eloquently indicated by the fact, what do they work in it 300 thousands of people.
The second official Chinese lottery - China Welfare Lottery. It is more traditional and does not involve sports betting., it is chosen mainly by the older generation and it is somewhat more in demand. With these two lotteries, the legal playing field of the PRC ends. В стране функционирует большое количество подпольных казино. The local police close tens of thousands of such establishments per year.
Monte Carlo east – Macau
If we talk about gambling in China, one cannot say nothing about Macau. Despite the small population and size of the city, both by local standards, Macau is considered one of the pearls in the Chinese crown.
Only recently did this Portuguese colony become Chinese, but the peculiarities of local government are similar to those of Hong Kong, i.e, adopted a lot from European law. In Hong Kong, former British colony, gambling is also allowed, but Macau is developing faster in this direction. Local administration has broader powers, but most importantly, gambling is allowed in Macau. IN 1999 year Macau became part of China with a developed system of gambling business, which has functioned and developed here for over a hundred years. Beijing did not immediately start breaking traditions, giving 50 years respite to the new district of the people's republic. Or in the meantime, China will lift bans on gambling, or Macau will cease to be one of the centers of the world gambling.
Online betting started in Macau in 2003 year. There are more than two hundred land-based betting points in the city.. Macau has about six hundred telephone betting services. Online betting is slowly replacing telephone. In addition to sports betting, betting on dog and horse racing is very popular in the city.. This is the historical pride of the city. Horse racing betting offered by Macau Jockey Club, one of the largest frequent establishments in the city, where only the staff counts 2 500 thousand people.
There is a similar club in Hong Kong, equally famous. This is the legendary Hong Kong Jockey Club, based in 1884 year. Beyond traditional horse racing betting, some time ago this club began to accept bets on football matches. Like his brother in Macau, Hong Kong Jockey Club has a sports betting license issued by the Chinese authorities.
Macau prepares to take over the crown from Las Vegas. Not only Chinese, but tourists from developed countries also flock to this never-dying city. And only here and in Hong Kong a betting lover can indulge in his favorite entertainment.. And Macau grows thanks to gambling, which provide forty percent of the city's gross domestic product. Gambling taxes are 70% all city income.
Online sector
Concerning the online sector, then in China everything is very sad. Authorities allowed only two operators of sports lotteries to accept bets via the Internet. Chinese authorities are fighting Western companies with all available means. IN 2014 year a scandal erupted, when it became known, what are the online bets on the site of the British bookmaker Bet 365 four Chinese citizens were arrested. The information was published by the British newspaper "Guardian". Bookmaker denied accusations, but at the same time does not stop working in the Far East, constantly changing site addresses and confusing regulatory authorities. Also Bet365 has its own call center, where employees work, know Chinese, specifically to support their services in China.
Lottery - a kind of bet
Interesting, that the lottery appeared in China at the initiative of the government. At the turn of the century, officials worried about, that the growing number of retirees will need to somehow be supported, but for two hundred million people there was no money in the budget. So the lottery permitting initiative, which, like all gambling in China, was banned for half a century, found fertile ground. At first, the government counted on at least 100 million dollars in revenue in the first quarter after approval. But expectations turned out to be less bright, than reality. Not even twenty years have passed, and residents of the country buy tickets for 67 billion dollars! (2017 year). What remains for the Chinese to play, if not in the lottery?
The Chinese lottery is somewhat similar in principle to betting. Bettors of the Celestial Empire put bets mainly on the matches of foreign football championships, basketball, baseball. An interesting feature of such bets is the floating odds for a single event. I.e, if the bettor made a bet three days before the match on an event with a coefficient 2,5, and in two days he fell to 1,5, then the player will eventually receive a win, if the bet works, exactly starting from the last kef. The lottery service belongs to the state, and thus it insures against surprises.
Another type of lottery is something, similar to european express. Need to guess the outcome 14 matches, in this case, the lucky owner of the lottery ticket will have a solid jackpot. But here, too, the state showed its will - the gain should not exceed 5 million yuan (near 160 one thousand dollars). One wrongly guessed outcome will reduce the bettor's winnings to 30% of the jackpot amount. There are other types of lottery, in which the less the number of events, the more stringent conditions for victory. In a four-match express, you need to predict all the final results along with the exact score..
How ancient keno was played
In the ancient "China Lottery" of General Chueng Leung, players had to choose a set of characters from 120 hieroglyphs and mark them. 120 hieroglyphs were divided into 8 categories. Twice a day, the emperor drew random combinations. If players lost in the same category, they lost three times the bet, and if they won, they received their bet back tenfold.
Ancient China had no electricity or telephones, therefore, carrier pigeons were used to distribute the results of the lottery throughout the state. Because of this, after a while, the game became known as the "Lottery of White Doves" (White Pigeon Game).
The draw usually took place daily - once in the morning and once in the evening. The lottery was so popular, that the Chueng Lueng government, after just ten draws, was able to fully restore the army with money, received from the game. Some Chinese sages called this lottery "tax for idiots". Is considered, what indirect taxes, collected from this game of chance, enough to build the Great Wall of China. In modern China, this form of keno is still called the "Thousand Classical Characters" (“The Thousand Character Classic”) and played out 2 once a day. Out of a thousand hieroglyphs are chosen 80, which are applied to the card by sections. Each section has 10 hieroglyphs. Players can wager any amount of money in each of the categories, depending on whether, which of the lottery options they want to play.
Lotteries with turnover in 61,5 billion
The exact size of the illegal gambling market in China cannot be determined, but the numbers of official lotteries are amazing. Last year, their total turnover was 61,5 billion dollars! Compared to 2013, the industry showed an increase in 23%. He is associated with the World Cup and the unprecedented activity around the sports lottery that month.. It accounts for a little less than half of the total lottery market - 28 billion dollars.
A real tidbit. And with the legalization of bets, China could become a key market for bookmakers. But despite the emerging from time to time initiatives to legalize the betting business in the classic, not a lottery form, the government is not ready to do this yet. First of all, the social orientation of the state interferes - in the PRC they simply fear, that the liberalization of gambling legislation is fraught with the emergence of millions of gambling addicts and dire consequences for their families.
But if you consider, whatever hefty fines, nor the risk of arrest discourage the Chinese from hunting for illegal gambling as in underground offices and casinos, and online, one can assume, that someday amnesty for bookmakers, banned in China for more than 50 years, will still take place. In the meantime, government agencies receive colossal revenues from gambling sports fans, controlling lotteries.
Drawing 6 rooms (spots)
| quantity | rate $1 | rate $2 | rate $3 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 4 | 8 | 16 | 40 |
| 5 | 50 | 100 | 250 |
| 6 | 1500 | 3000 | 7500 |
"The drawing 6 numbers "means, that you can win the indicated amounts, if you mark on your ticket 6 Drawn Numbers. Numbers are also sometimes referred to as spots. For example, if you choose 5 numbers - you play 5 spots. If you choose 6 numbers - you play 6 spots. You can choose any number of rooms, the above paytable is just an example of, what a keno payout system might look like. The $ 1 Bet column shows, how much is the win, if you put on your ticket 1 dollars. Even just looking at this column is easy to understand, why keno is so popular - putting everything 1 dollar you can win $ 1500. The bet is larger than the minimum, recommended in this casino, does not give you a strategic advantage, since the payout at the highest bet is simply proportional to its size. If you guess "total" 5 rooms, the payment will be much less, than if you guess everything 6 rooms, and will constantly decrease - to 1 dollar, if you guess 3 numbers from 6. And if you guess less than three numbers, you can throw out the ticket, he costs nothing. As seen from the table, if you mark 6 numbers and guess everything 6, then if you bet one dollar you win 1500 dollars. However, the probability of this is approximately 1 to 7500.
Keno Winning Odds and Payout Percentages
To understand, what are the odds of winning in keno, you need to understand first, how is the game going. Keno uses 80 balls, each of which has a number - from 1 to 80. In each draw, randomly drawn 20 balls, whose numbers are shown on screens or electronic boards - keno scoreboard. The results of the drawing are also shown on the scoreboard, located throughout the casino, and in the keno hall, depending on the options of the game, the winnings are paid. The goal of the keno player is to choose the numbers, which, in his opinion, will fall out during the drawing. These 20 numbers are drawn randomly, and the casino dealer calls them. Before this, balls with numbers are shuffled. If you are playing online, then the numbers are "drawn" using a computer program - a random number generator. Usually, players mark the numbers in the slip with special black markers or pencils, after which they transfer it to the agent, which certifies the selected numbers and issues a printed ticket in return. The best odds when betting keno, what should be your bets to win in keno? The exact answer cannot be given, as each casino has its own rules - you can find and read them in special booklets, which will also help you make a decision, how much to bet on each ticket.In most cases, casinos have some kind of bonuses for bets, but most often the keno winning table looks like this (Do not forget, that this is just an example):
Variety of bets through the lottery
The football lottery is in the highest demand. Its essence is quite simple.: you have to guess the outcome 14 matches. If the lottery participant guesses only 13 - does not receive a jackpot, a 30% from the possible maximum win. Which the, by the way, limited - payout cannot exceed 160 one thousand dollars (5 million yuan) per match.
This is true for other similar forms of lottery.. Let's say, Optional Nine - here you need to guess the outcomes 9 meetings, and already without any favors. Bàn quán chǎng is a game, where you need to predict the outcome of the first half and the full match in 6 meetings. Another option is Jin Qiucai. There is everything in the game 4 match, but you have to guess the exact score. In recent years, this form of lottery has gained fantastic popularity., because it promises a fabulous win.
But such variations on the express train, of course, not the only way to bet on sports in the lottery. There are also ordinary single bets on the outcome and on the total.. The latter are popular with basketball and baseball fans.. The peculiarity of single bets - the odds on them are not fixed when the forecast is received. That is, if the Chinese bet on victory, let's say, Inter over Milan with odds 1,85, and then the ratio dropped to 1,65, then the player will receive his winnings precisely for 1,65. That is, by the odds at the start of the match. This is an additional risk protection for bookmakers, more precisely, in the case of China, for the administration of the lottery. However, if the coefficient grows, it will already be in favor of the player. So in China it makes sense to choose a less popular one in single outcome lotteries..
