Keno's Ancient History

Although the game of Keno resembles Bingo in appearance, it comes from entirely different origins. While Bingo comes, ostensibly, from France and Italy in the 1500s, Keno is of ancient Chinese descent. And what an interesting history it has!

Time-trip back about two-thousand years, to China in the middle of the Han Dynasty. The country is up to its inscrutable ears in a very expensive war. Military coffers are running thin and the citizenry is not at all thrilled about funding the fighting any further. Enter one Cheung Leung, mathematical genius. Leung lends his mind to gaming and comes up with a fun, winnable game-of-chance that combines skill and luck to become one of the most popular games in China, ever. First China --then the world!

Within weeks, Leung's new game has earned enough revenue to float the Chinese army and save the town as well as make some formerly-impoverished Chinese citizens into very wealthy men, indeed. The new game, known as the 'White Pigeon Game', earns enough loot to partially finance the building of The Great Wall, as well.

Keno was originally called the 'White Pigeon Game' because that was the method of transportation used to communicate the winning tickets from the big cities where the games were held, into the smaller provinces where many of the players dwelt.

Flash forward to the mid-1800s, when there was a massive influx of Chinese immigrants brought to the US to build the trans-continental railway system. These immigrants bring many familiar customs with them, and the 'White Pigeon Game' is among them. Eventually the game evolves from the symbol-based game invented by Cheung Leung into what we now know and love as Keno.