The History and Origins of Keno

Keno is one of the oldest number games still played today, and its story runs from an ancient Chinese lottery through the gambling halls of nineteenth-century America to the screen-based draws you can play across Canada now. This article separates what is documented history from what is popular legend, explains how the game got its French-sounding name, and shows how a sheet of Chinese characters became a card of numbers from 1 to 80. Where a story is a legend rather than a fact, it is labelled as one.

Where did keno come from?

Keno is of Chinese origin and of great antiquity. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the game dates back at least 2,000 years, which makes it one of the oldest lottery-style games in continuous use. For most of that history it was played not with numbers but with written characters, and it travelled the world with Chinese emigrants before taking the numbered form that is familiar today.

It is important to draw a line early. The game’s deep Chinese roots are widely accepted, but the colourful origin tale about a besieged ruler and a war-funding lottery is a legend, not established history. The two are often blended together online; below they are kept apart.

The Han-dynasty legend of keno

The most-repeated origin story is a legend set in the Han dynasty, roughly the second century BCE. In the usual telling, a leader — often named Cheung Leung, and in some accounts identified as the statesman Zhang Liang (張良, c. 251–189 BCE), an adviser to Emperor Gaozu — needed money to keep an army in the field while a city was under siege. His people were already taxed to the limit, so he is said to have devised a lottery-style game to raise the funds, and the proceeds reportedly saved the city.

A second part of the legend explains the game’s old nickname. As play spread to outlying villages, carrier pigeons were supposedly used to send the winning results back and forth, which is why the game became known as the “white pigeon game.” A further embellishment claims the winnings helped pay for the Great Wall of China; there is no solid evidence for that, and it should be treated as folklore.

Why historians treat the story as legend

The chronology does not hold together. The traditional Chinese game was played with characters drawn from the Thousand Character Classic (千字文), a famous poem used to teach children in which no character repeats. That text is traditionally dated to the Liang dynasty (502–557 CE) — centuries after Zhang Liang lived. A game built on a poem that did not yet exist cannot have been invented by a figure who died around 189 BCE. Zhang Liang may well have used some kind of lottery to raise money, but it was almost certainly not the game we now call keno. For that reason, treat the Han-dynasty tale as an origin myth rather than a date you can rely on.

The white pigeon game (báigē piào)

The traditional Chinese game is documented under the name 白鴿票 — báigē piào in Mandarin, or baak gaap piu in Cantonese — which translates literally as “white pigeon ticket.” In its recorded form it began in Guangdong province in the late Qing dynasty before Chinese emigrants carried it around the Pacific.

The pigeon name is not as settled as the legend suggests. The Macau historian Tan Shibao has argued that 白鴿 (“white pigeon”) was a homophonic cover for the game’s real name, 博合 (“match betting”), because no firm evidence links the game to earlier pigeon races. In other words, the charming carrier-pigeon story may be a later folk explanation rather than the true source of the name.

What is clear is the ticket itself. A báigē piào sheet carried 80 unique characters — the first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic — printed in a fixed grid. That number is the direct ancestor of the modern 80-number keno card: when operators later swapped characters for digits, the count of 80 simply carried over.

The earliest records of the Chinese lottery

The firmest early evidence comes from Chinese officials trying to ban the game, not from the legend. A Qing official recorded a ban on pigeon tickets in Guangdong in 1804–05, which proves the game already existed and was widespread enough to worry the authorities. By the mid-nineteenth century, travellers described it as hugely popular, played even by women and children.

The game was first legalised — rather than merely tolerated — in Macau in January 1847, when the Portuguese governor authorised it at the request of local Chinese businessmen, with annual licences following in 1848. This is why many references note that the Chinese lottery is not documented in an official, legal form before 1847, even though the ban records show it running decades earlier.

How did keno get its name?

The word “keno” is French in origin, even though the game is Chinese. It is generally traced to the French quine, meaning a set of five winning numbers, which in turn comes from the Latin quini, “five each.” Dictionary.com dates the English word to 1805–15 and notes it was also shaped by the ending of “lotto,” the European lottery game keno was adapted toward. So the modern name reflects the game’s European and American chapter, not its Chinese beginnings — a small but common point of confusion.

How keno reached North America

Keno crossed the Pacific with Chinese immigrant labour in the nineteenth century. Large numbers of Chinese workers sailed to the west coast of the United States to help build the First Transcontinental Railroad; National Geographic reports that as many as 20,000 Chinese workers were recruited for that project. They brought the white pigeon game with them, and after landing in San Francisco they introduced it to the communities around them — often as a way to unwind after gruelling work.

As the game moved beyond Chinese communities, operators replaced the Chinese characters with numbers so that non-Chinese players could follow it easily. In its numbered form the game spread quickly through American gambling venues, including the gambling halls of New Orleans, where it was commonly known as the “Chinese lottery.”

From Chinese characters to numbers

Swapping characters for numbers was the single change that turned a community game into a mainstream one. The 80 characters became the numbers 1 to 80, a block of winning numbers was drawn, and players marked their chosen spots on a printed ticket — the same basic shape the game keeps today. The grid layout, the count of 80, and the idea of matching a selection against a drawn set all survived the translation; only the symbols changed.

Race-Horse Keno and the move to Nevada

In the United States the game ran into lottery laws, and the workaround gave keno one of its oddest chapters. Britannica records that keno appeared in the gambling houses of Reno, Nevada, in 1933 under the name “Race-Horse Keno.” Because state law treated lotteries as illegal, operators printed the names of racehorses on the tickets instead of numbers and presented the game as a form of racing rather than a lottery.

When Nevada changed the relevant laws in 1951, the disguise was no longer needed. The horse names were dropped, the tickets returned to plain numbers, and the game settled into the name we use now: keno. (Some local histories put an early Reno appearance a few years later in the mid-1930s, so treat the exact first date with a little caution; the renaming to numbers after the 1951 law change is the firmer fact.)

Keno today: from drawn balls to RNG

Modern keno comes in several forms, and they share the same DNA described above. Lottery-style and “daily” keno — the kind sold at retailers and run by official operators — still draws a block of 20 numbers that players match against their chosen spots. Live or casino keno is played in a gaming room with a visible draw, while video keno and online keno use a random number generator (RNG): software that produces each draw at random instead of physical balls. For a full tour of these formats, see our guide to the main types of keno and game variants, and for the step-by-step mechanics see how to play keno.

In Canada the game is run by the provincial lottery corporations rather than by one national product, so details such as the size of the number pool and draw times vary from province to province. Our overview of keno in Canada compares the provincial games side by side. Whatever the format, the underlying maths has not changed since the characters became numbers: a fixed set is drawn at random, and the operator keeps a built-in margin — the topic of our page on keno odds and payouts.

Common myths about keno’s history

Because so much of keno’s past is legend, a handful of claims get repeated as fact. Here are the ones worth correcting:

• “Keno funded the Great Wall of China.” This is folklore attached to the Han-dynasty legend; there is no reliable evidence for it.
• “Keno was invented by Cheung Leung / Zhang Liang in the Han dynasty.” The game relies on a text from the sixth century CE, so a second-century-BCE inventor is chronologically impossible. The tale is a legend, not a dated event.
• “The name keno is Chinese.” The game is Chinese, but the name is French, from quine (a group of five), via Latin quini.
• “Keno has always used numbers.” For most of its history it used Chinese characters; numbers were a later American substitution that helped the game spread.
• “Carrier pigeons are the proven reason for the name.” That is the popular explanation, but historians have argued the “white pigeon” name may be a cover for a different term meaning “match betting.”

A note on keno and gambling

This is a background article about the history of keno, not gambling advice. Keno is a game of chance with a fixed house edge, and no historical detail or system changes the odds of any draw. Where keno is offered in Canada it is restricted to adults (18+ or 19+ depending on the province). If gambling is affecting you or someone you know, free, confidential help is available — see our guide to responsible gambling and support in Canada.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How old is keno?

Keno is of Chinese origin and, according to Britannica, dates back at least 2,000 years, which makes it one of the oldest lottery-style games still played. The documented record is younger: the game is clearly evidenced in Guangdong by a ban in 1804–05 and was first legalised in Macau in 1847.

Who invented keno?

No one can be named with certainty. A popular legend credits a Han-dynasty figure — often Cheung Leung, sometimes the statesman Zhang Liang — with creating a lottery to fund an army, but that story is chronologically impossible and is treated as a myth. Keno is best described as a traditional Chinese game with no single documented inventor.

Why is keno called the “white pigeon game”?

The traditional Chinese game was known as báigē piào (白鴿票), literally “white pigeon ticket.” The popular explanation is that carrier pigeons once relayed winning results between towns, though some historians argue “white pigeon” was a homophonic cover for a term meaning “match betting.”

How did keno come to North America?

Chinese immigrants brought the game to the United States in the nineteenth century, many of them workers who helped build the First Transcontinental Railroad. After arriving in San Francisco they shared the game locally, and once the Chinese characters were replaced with numbers it spread to a wider audience, notably in New Orleans.

Where does the name “keno” come from?

The name is French, not Chinese. It derives from the French word quine, meaning a group of five winning numbers, which traces back to the Latin quini (“five each”). The English word is dated to around 1805–15 and was also influenced by “lotto.”