Keno: The History of the Chinese Lotto
Like any other game, keno has its own interesting history that is as fun to hear and tell as playing the game itself is.History tells us that keno actually was created during the Han dynasty by an ancient Chinese ruler named Cheung Leung. Cheung Leung was the first person credited with the creation of a game very similar to modern keno to raise funds for his army.
Cheung Leung's army was waging a battle to defend his city from invaders. The picture looked bleak, however. Supplies were low and so were the funds. the people, tired and weary of the war, were no longer willing to pay more taxes to support the wartime efforts of Cheung Leung and his men.
It fell upon Cheung Leung's shoulders to think of a plan to raise more money for his army at the same time stop the mass grumbling about more taxes that was going through the city's population.
Fortunately, Cheung Leung seemed to be some sort of a literary man, and he used the Thousand Character Classic to construct a game that would serve as a fund raising tool to get more money for his war.
The Thousand character Classic was a poem originally used to help little Chinese children learn numbers. One hundred and twenty character s were taken from the poem and used in the game, and these were subdivided into eight subdivisions. Each player had to guess the contents of one subdivision correctly and if he succeeded, he won a prize, which was usually ten taels, the Chinese currency at that time.
The game was a big hit and soon it was being played everywhere. Since white doves were often used to relay messages of winners all throughout the Chinese countryside, people began calling it the game of the white pigeon.
With the game's success, Cheung Leung was able to supply his army with the supplies they needed. The game is even credited with having supplied the funds of build one of the grestest testaments of Chinese ingenuity, the Great Wall of China.
Keno came to America along with Chinese immigrants and railroad workers, and became a big hit, especially in San Francisco, where it became more known as the Chinese lottery. At the end of the 20th century the Chinese characters were replaced with numbers to allow more American players to play.
During the early 1930s the name was changed to Horse race keno, since the Nevada legislature have not legalized lottery, which keno definitely was. The name keno was only used again when the government finally decided to legalize off-track betting, and keno has been keno ever since. |
