The origins of Keno are a bit of a mystery and nobody can probe today which is the truth. We think the origins of Keno is a matter of opinion. Some ancient Chinese indicate that a similar game to keno was introduced around 200 BC by the Han Dynasty to produce revenue for his army that was at war and beginning to run out of supplies. That game spreading throughout China and is said that it revenues help to build the Great Wall.

The heritage produced by this keno history is a Chinese poem of a thousand numbers.
In China the characters are often used as a romantic numbering system so they used those characters in spite of just numbers on the keno boards. Originally 120 characters were used in the game but it drop to 80 once it left china.

Chinese immigrants imported the game it became known as the Chinese lottery. Near the end of the 19th century the characters were replaced with more familiar numbers.

In 1931 gambling was legalized in the state of Nevada but lotteries were not covered under the legislature so they had to change the name to “horse race keno”. As the government passed a law that taxed off-track betting, Nevada swiftly changed the name again, shortening it to just Keno.