Keno

Keno is a lottery-type game, which began over two thousand years ago in China. This game of chance was created by a man named Cheung Leung, in order to raise money for a weak army. Villagers were tired and disillusioned and Leung had no desire to raise taxes in order to attain the funds necessary to save his city.

Leung developed a game in which players had to buy tickets to play, and choose their “lot” from 120 Chinese characters. This innovation was introduced in the hope that the locals would try their luck, place their bets, and pay money to have a chance to win.

Leung’s game proved to be very successful, and he managed to save his city by strengthening his army with money raised from the game. In those days, carrier pigeons were used to advise villagers of the results. For this reason the ancient game was sometimes known as the “White Pigeon Game”. It is believed that the Great Wall of China was built with money made from the Keno game. Keno is a game of luck which is quite straightforward to play. Leung would have probably been very surprised to learn that his simple game would last for so many years and would become popular in many places around the globe.