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Understand the House Edge: The most important tip that can be given to someone that is interested in playing keno is that the house edge must absolutely be understood. There is no sense going into a keno game in an effort to beat it if you do not take the time beforehand to determine exactly what the house edge is. Since this house edge can be as low as a few percentage points or as high as a few dozen percentage points, there is enough variation that you can really hurt your chances of winning if you do not put the research in beforehand.

Typically, both online and offline casinos are not that fond of publishing keno house edges, since it is usually regulated in a way that is different from staple casino games like blackjack, baccarat and roulette. The best way to handle this is to simply not play at a casino that will not publish a verifiable house edge for their keno game. In the online world this might even frighten your prospective casino into divulging that information, since the online world is full of competition over new players.

Understand the Software: Another important tip for someone that is about to play a game of online keno is to understand the software before you jump in. The reason for this is that if you are going to be playing online keno (or even offline electronic keno for that matter), the decisions that you make in terms of number selection need to be absolutely precise. There is nothing worse than seeing a feeling of elation turn to one of disgust because you missed the number you thought you had picked with the cursor, instead picking one of the numbers adjacent to it. This is just not a good thing and you can easily avoid it by understanding the software before you sit down to play the game.

Typically, most of the online casinos will have parts of their software dedicated to free play. While most players tend to bypass this section and go straight for the real money gaming, you as an intelligent gambler should make good use of this section. Use the section to get to know the software and above all use it to become proficient in the use of the software before you head over to the real money games. If you do not follow this advice and something bad happens to you in the real money keno game, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Understand Walking Away: Before you head into any keno game, your strategy should be a short term win. It is impossible to beat the casino at keno in the long run, because they have fixed the statistics in such a way that in the long run they can not possibly lose. Therefore, you need to make sure that you understand this and have the discipline to walk away if you win in the short term. This is the only way you can book a win in keno.

Keno is an interesting game simply because it is perhaps the only game to become extremely popular without being the top game of any particular establishment. Over the years, keno has become a popular lottery game as well as a popular casino-based game and while many people play both versions every single day, the lottery and/or the casino that hosts the game usually makes more of a fuss over the other games that they have. No other game in history has ever achieved this distinction and a lot of it has to do with the particulars that make the game of keno unique.

The Setup

Setting up a game of keno is relatively simple, especially if it happens to be an online casino that is creating the game. All that is required is a number of different cards with the numbers 1 to 80 written on them for selection as well as numbered balls with the numbers 1 to 80 on them for selection purposes. In this sense, the setup of a keno game is actually not that different from the setup of any other lottery. Lottery games are primarily games that rely on quick and easy setup and playing to draw people to them and keno is no exception to this rule.

The Game Play

Playing keno is relatively simple. All you need to do is select a preset amount of numbers from the card. These numbers will be the numbers you wager on. Then, when the casino draws their balls for the calculation of this particular keno round (traditionally there are twenty numbers drawn), the players compare their selections with the balls drawn in order to see who ends up winning and who ends up losing. In this way, keno is pretty much like any other lottery that you can play.

The Winnings

The winnings of a particular keno match depend entirely on the casino that you are playing at. Most casinos have their own way of paying different keno bets and while there are a number of different standardized pay tables that casinos will utilize, you will find that the variation in paying out bets for keno is actually quite diverse; more so than for any other casino game that has been brought online from its original offline form.

The Edge

Because of the extreme diversity that exists within the keno pay tables, being able to cite a definitive number as being the exact house edge in the game is quite difficult. Indeed, keno house edges are quite varied and depending on where in the world or online you play keno, the house edge could be anywhere from 4% all the way up to 66%. The latter is quite rare of course, but it has been known to happen, particularly within casinos that are not heavily regulated. Online the edge tends to be smaller than offline, simply because of the intense competition for players that occurs within the marketplace. This is perhaps one reason as to why online keno is relatively more popular than its offline counterpart.

Pontoon is a game that has been around much longer than American Blackjack and is generally considered to be the second oldest version of blackjack after vignt-eh-un, the French version of the game. There are many similarities between Pontoon and Blackjack and many differences as well.

Setup

There is no “house” to be spoken of in Pontoon, but rather the game is setup with two or more players in each hand and a rotating banker that effectively plays the position of the house in a single hand. Normally, one deck is used unless there are eight or more players playing, in which case two decks are used.

The Initial Deal

Players cut for the high card and the person that gets it ends up being the banker for the first hand. The banker then deals one card face down to each player, starting to their left and ending with them. Each player except for the banker is allowed to look at their card before making a bet against the banker’s hand.

Game Play

Once the bets have been put down, the banker will deal a second card to each player and look at their own cards for the first time as each player examines their second card. Any player that already has a point value of 21 in their hand (aces are 1 or 11, face cards are 10 and all other cards are their face value) is said to have a Pontoon and they therefore end up sitting out the rest of the hand. If the banker has a Pontoon, then everyone else automatically loses.

From this point in the game, play starts with the player immediately to the left of the banker and then proceeds in a normal blackjack form. Depending on the specific variant of blackjack being played, the options for the players and the banker might be different, but the basics of the game work like any other game of blackjack throughout the rest of the hand.

In a typical Pontoon game however, each player is given the chance to buy another card face down (requires an increase in bet amount) or to twist another card face up at no extra charge. Splitting is also allowed in Pontoon and of course any player that goes over 21 during the process of adding cards to their hand ends up busting and losing their bet regardless of what happens with the banker’s hand.

End of Hand

Once each player has gone through their particular turn, the banker turns up their own cards (without affecting any cards from the players that might be face down) and goes through their own turn. Once the banker is satisfied, all remaining hands are compared with ties being won by the banker. All of the used cards are then placed at the bottom of the deck without shuffling and a new banker is selected by some mutually agreed upon method (i.e. a rotation around the table or the best win in a specific hand with high card tiebreaking).

Keno, like any other lottery or gambling game, is a game of luck primarily. While luck is always going to win in the long run because of the house edge, there is an element of strategy to the game nonetheless. In the case of keno, the strategy, if employed properly, will result in a house edge that is much smaller than it might otherwise be. This in turn increases your chances of winning big in the short term, something that can help you immensely if you only play keno once or twice in a while. Here are some tips to get you started on playing keno strategy properly.

Playing the Pay Table

The single most important point of keno strategy that you could ever learn is something that is known as “playing the pay table.”  This is just basic strategy to any game that you might find in a casino, but because keno does not have a perfect strategy component in the way that a game like blackjack would, understanding the pay tables and using them to your benefit becomes all the more important.

In a typical game of keno, you will pick twenty numbers and then you will be paid based on how many of those twenty numbers also end up appearing in the draw that is done by the house. This means that there are twenty possibilities, starting with picking twenty and hitting none and ending with picking twenty and hitting all twenty. The odds of the first happening are approximately 1 in 845, while the odds of the last happening are approximately 1 in 3.5 quintillion. There is of course variation of the odds in between, with the lowest odds proposition being hitting five of the twenty, which has odds of about 1 in 4.3.

However, just because something has the best odds of happening does not mean that it is the best bet. What you need to do is take a look at all of the payouts that the house offers and then compare them to the odds of each particular proposition happening. While this will not help you in terms of actual betting (i.e. you just pick twenty numbers rather than betting on a specific outcome), it will allow you to computer the house edge. This is important because in keno the house edge can be as low as 4% or as high as 66% depending on where you play. Playing the pay table will allow you to find a place with a low house edge and play there to increase the chances of your short term win.

Human Error

This does not occur very often, but every once in a while you will encounter a really old set of keno equipment at a casino. This equipment will not be automated, but rather will be operated by a human being. If you are observant enough, you might catch something in the way the dealer selects the numbers that allows you to increase your odds through picking specific numbers that have a higher chance of occurring. Do not fall in love with this method however, as you will be lucky in the modern era to encounter even one casino that is run like this in a lifetime of keno playing.

Tracking the history of any game is a very difficult task to do. The reason for this, as most game historians know, is that while there are many different nations, languages and cultures on this planet, human beings tend to think startlingly similarly to each other and for that reason can simultaneously develop games at the same time independently in two different sections of the world. The history of keno therefore is a tangled web that has very few certainties. There is however a majority opinion of the history of keno and this is the history that is presented below.

The Word

Even though the word keno has been associated with the Far East and in particular the nation of China and the Chinese language, the truth of the matter is that the word keno has its roots in the romance languages that came out of the Roman Empire rather than the tonal languages that are common within the Orient. The word keno comes from the French word quine, which stands for “five winning numbers.”  The word can also be traced back to the Latin word quini, which essentially means the same thing. Therefore, the word keno has its roots deeply embedded in Europe, even if the game’s invention took place elsewhere.

First Sighting

Looking over the annals of history, the first sighting of the game of keno was without a doubt in China. Specifically, the first playing of keno as far as historians know took place between 205 BC and 187 BC during the years of the Han Dynasty within the Chinese state. This makes the roots of the word particularly perplexing, since there are no accounts of the game having been played in Europe until much later.

Legend Status

According to a number of old Chinese texts, the invention of keno directly resulted in the saving of a city when that city was about to succumb to an advancing army during a period of war in the country of China. From that rather legendary birth, keno was then spread throughout the Chinese lands and gained enough popularity that a large amount of the funding for construction of the Great Wall of China came from keno proceeds. Some historians even believe that keno was an event of such great importance that it was run like a modern lottery, with results being sent out to the whole kingdom by horse as opposed to television or any other modern electronic device.

Modern Introduction

The accounts of the first sighting and the legendary status of the game of keno are not without their challengers, but for the most part they appear to be accepted by the historical community. One fact that is undisputed however is that the game was introduced to the United States in the 1800s when Chinese immigrants came over to the American continent in order to construct the railroad that went from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Keno was introduced at that time, was picked up by casinos and would eventually become a staple part of the gambling scene in the country.