In pubs and RSL clubs across Australia, keno is huge. Many players have won millions of dollars in this often overlooked game — in fact, the pub we used to frequent, the Manly Hotel in Brisbane, had a $2.2 million winner. A tradie chose to use his coins to play keno instead of bet on the horses and walked away a very happy man.
Online keno is just as good, if not better. Instead of playing at the pace of the game operators, you play at your own pace. With more game-play options, higher potential winnings and the convenience of playing from home, gambling and playing keno over the Internet is, in our opinion, superior to playing at the pub. It’s just a matter of finding a Web casino you enjoy and can trust with your money, and this page can you do find just that.
These real keno sites are platforms you can trust with your hard-earned cash, have established reputations among the gambling community, and provide customer support on a 24-hour, seven days a week basis. If you have any queries, contact them via the live chat feature, write them an email, or give them a call.
All you need to play Keno is an Internet connection and a deposit method — there’s no need to share your personal I.Ds such as a driver’s license or passport. The majority of available options allow transactions using the Australian dollar (AUD), and even those that require currency conversions are available to Australians who want to use them.
If you have a bank account with ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac or a whole host of credit Unions, you can process deposits into your casino account via a bank transfer with your preferred financial institution. Bank transfers like EPS, Instant Bank, and Instant Banking (a different method) all work as payment methods, but won’t work for withdrawals. Credit and debit cards like Visa Electron, Maestro Debit, Solo, Switch Debit, and Delta Card also work for deposit transactions, but not cashouts.
For added financial privacy, there are prepaid VISA cards or pre-paid Internet services like Ukash for those who don’t want to link bank accounts. Prepaid cards work much like the debit options, so Ukash work for deposits, but not withdrawals. E-wallets are also rising in popularity as secure personal wallets in the digital space. Services such as Citadel Direct, eCheck, EziPay, Click To Pay, EcoCard, Entropay, Instadebit, Neteller POLi and Skrill (Moneybookers) can be used for deposits always, and for withdrawals in most cases. PayPal is unfortunately not as extensively supported, but the huge amount of services means there’s a dozen alternatives for every player.
You’ll need to keep a few things in mind, though, before you deposit money and play. Online keno is not quite the same as what you’ll find in the brick-and-mortar casinos. Some of the changes are drastic, so a certain adjustment period might be needed to adapt to the game. Below is how land-based games different from those on the Internet.
Australian keno on the Net can be played either as video keno — using a machine, or in an online casino — or in the more traditional format, where players fill out cards before draw. These draws are held every five minutes or so. The electronic version of keno is almost exactly like it is in live casinos. In nearly all cases, keno is played with a total of 80 numbers on the board, called spots. Like in real life gaming, 20 numbers are chosen at random; these are called hits. Choosing “spots” is a matter of a point-and-click with your mouse, which is much easier than it would be at a live vendor.
On many sites, the player will have the choice to play as few as 1 spot. If you prefer, you can play as many as 10, 15, or 20 spots. Remember that the chances are astronomical you’ll win all 20 spots, so it might not be worth your money to try. Still, having extra numbers gives you some margin for error. Collecting fifteen winning numbers usually provides the max jackpot, anyway.
Depending on the number of spots chosen by the player, they will be required to match a certain number of the numbers drawn to their spots in order to win a prize. For instance, if the player chooses 5 spots, the pay table might look something like the following:
These payouts are in relation to the unit the player originally bet. They are also expressed on a “for one” basis, rather than the “to one” payouts provided by most games. This means you always lose your original wager, much in the same way that you’d lose the dollar you spend on a lottery ticket. In the above example, hitting one spot would give you half of your original stake back, while hitting two spots would allow you to break even by getting your original stake back. In most wagering situations, a person would need 4 or more hits to win more than you paid.
In live keno, draws are usually held every five minutes. In video and online keno, you’re able to play new rounds at any pace you like. Players are often given the option of buying tickets allowing them to play the same spots over the next several draws, rather than buying separate tickets for each draw. This allows you to play at an advanced pace, if you prefer. One tip is to slow down your pace — you don’t want to gamble at the rate of the pokies or you could lose a lot of money, even if you’re playing for low stakes.
If you want to see how computer keno works, try one of the free games you’ll find on the Net. Players can find tutorial websites to play for free and see whether they’ll like gaming on their computer. Those who want to try out the software at a real money online casino can go to one of the websites named on this page and try out the software for free. All you have to do is register an account and when you sign up, you won’t have to make a deposit.
Some sites even offer no deposit bonuses which allow you to play with a little bit of house money, without incurring any obligation. Take note that some sites only allow freeplay gaming until someone starts playing for real money. After that, it will be pay to play.
Keno online isn’t a game of much strategic depth. Like most other lottery games, the results of Aussies playing keno are entirely up to luck. Once you’ve picked your spots, you’ll have no impact on the game. Some players may try certain strategies when choosing numbers, but the results are picked at random, meaning no one combination of numbers is any more likely than another.
Unlike lottery games, you don’t have to worry about avoiding common numbers, like birthdays and red letter days in history. Since keno is played using a pay table, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the lone winner or 10 other people chose the same number combination — you get paid the same.
If you want to get the best odds possible, you’ll want to do two things. First, take a look to see what the payoffs are on each number of spots you might choose to play. The player returns are different on each number of spots – sometimes wildly so. In addition, you can generally get better odds by playing on the Web rather than in live casinos — as we explain in the section on odds below.
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Players new to Keno have common questions they want answers. For your convenience, we’ve compiled a frequently-asked-questions sections for our online keno guide. If you have any questions, browse through the Keno FAQ below before searching any further.
Keno is a game of pure chance. No strategy or skill is involved in winning at Keno, which is one of the keys to the game’s popularity. People anywhere can pick their lucky numbers and take a shot at a big Keno prize. In short, winning at Keno is about pure luck, so don’t worry about keno strategy or keno tips.
A spot is an active number on a keno ticket. If you pick a number to win, it’s called a spot. Keno players can buy anywhere between 1 to 20 spots in any given drawing. Some websites limit the number of spots to 15. The more spots you buy, the more chances you have to win at Keno.
A hit is a winning number in keno. If you buy 15 spots and 8 of them are picked in the drawings, you receive 8 hits. Keno pay tables pay out for the number of hits you have. Hits are sometimes called “catches”.
Gambling experts often cite the astronomically low odds of hitting all 20 numbers on a 20-spot ticket. This would be 1 in 3.5 quintillion, which means it would take longer than the life span of the universe to win, if you played once a week. But those statistics really don’t get at the truth about Keno odds.
You buy a bunch of spots and don’t hope for perfection. Even if you play the 20-spot game, that means 60 non-winning numbers are in the tumbler. Below are the odds of having a certain number of hits (winning numbers) when you buy 20 spots.
Looking at the odds, you can see why people named this game “Quine”, because the most common number of hits is 5. You might notice that the odds of hitting the big jackpot are much lower than in Mega Millions or Powerball lotteries, with much smaller payouts.
That’s true, but those lottery games don’t pay out nearly as high for the smaller number of winning numbers — and don’t pay out in nearly as many winning scenarios. Keno is a game where you’ll get paid more smaller payouts than in western-style lottery games, while occasionally having one big payout.
The house edge varies wildly in keno. In Melbourne, you’ll find keno games with amazingly good payout tables. Competition is fierce and Melbourne casinos offer Keno with a house edge in the 3% to 4% range. In places with no competition, the house edge can be as much as 30%, which is awful. Like a lottery, the chances of winning are huge, so the house edge is large. 15% to 20% is common.
A paybook is a guide to keno given by land-based casinos. A Keno paybook typically has a list of the rules, paytables, and a tutorial of how to play. If you go to a land-based casino to play keno, ask the staff for a playbook.
A keno pattern is a so-called pattern to the winning numbers. Online keno writers talk about popular keno patterns and use official-sounding phrases like 4-card pattern and 20-card pattern. All of this is bunk. If you play at a legitimate website with a true random number generator, there is no pattern to the keno drawings.
A keno drawing is method used for determining results in keno. You might have a mechanical drawing with a tumbler. In online keno, operators use software random number generators to determine results. In either case, operators schedule periodical drawings, allowing players to buy spots in between.
A keno draw is the same as a keno drawing. In certain parts of the world, local gamblers call lottery draws either “draw” or “drawing”. In Australia and New Zealand and countries influenced by Aussie gamblers, they have keno draws. In the United States and Canada and places influenced by American parlance, they have keno drawings.
Keno has many different payout tables. Even with a single lotto company, you’ll find multiple payout tables. For instance, the Connecticut Lottery has Keno payout tables for everything from a 1-spot game to a 10-spot game.
To show the wide variety, I’ll print a few of the popular Keno payout tables. I’ll show the general 10-spot game table, the 12-spot game table, and the Lottoland 10-spot keno game’s payable. Notice how the payout distribution changes based on the number of spots you buy.
Keno has 80-ball drawings, with the numbers 1 through 80. In theory, no number is more likely to be drawn than any other number. If mechanically drawn, some keno lotteries might have balls which appear more often, but those would be on a lottery-by-lottery basis. In a modern fair keno drawing, no numbers should have an advantage.
Many online keno games have a board which shows the latest 10 to 20 drawings. Players might use these lists to pick “hot” or “cold” numbers. In truth, the likelihood of a number being drawn is unaffected by previous drawings when using a true random number generator.
The name “Keno” is thought to be derived from the French word ‘quine’, meaning either “five winning numbers”, or the Latin word ‘quini’, meaning “five apiece”. Despite the French-sounding name, the game definitely derives from China. Keno appears to be the name given to the game after it arrived in the United States (in Houston), so any French name might derive from the gamblers of nearby New Orleans.
In Macau, the game was called baige piao, from the Portuguese word for “white dove ticket”. Supposedly, results of drawings were carried to villages via carrier pigeons. In Cantonese, baige piao was pronounced “baak-gap-piu” or “pah-ka-pu”. In China and the Oceanian region in the 19th century, a Keno-style game called Pakapoo flourished.
The common myth about Keno is it’s an ancient Chinese lottery game. Stories tell of the first Chinese emperor funding the construction of the Great Wall of China with a Keno lottery. All of that is bunk.
Many believe Keno originated in Canton, China in the 1840s, though Cantonese gamblers might have acquired the game from elsewhere in China. The then-Portuguese colony of Macau first licensed Keno operators in 1847. Cantonese people immigrated from Southern China to the Western United States in the 1860s, mainly to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Certain numbers of Chinese brought Keno to a Texas casino, which operated outside the law in the city of Houston in 1866. First popularized in Texas, Keno spread in popularity through the decades. Eventually, Nevada casinos began to house games of Keno, where the lottery game became popular throughout the world. These days, online keno is popular in online and mobile casinos, while state lottery websites throughout the world host Keno games.
Australian and New Zealand have many keno draws each day, while states like New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in the United States have Keno drawings. Note: In Australia and New Zealand, they’re called “draws”, but in the United States, they’re called “drawings”.
Yes, you’ll find dozens of real money online keno variations, depending on the software supplies to online and mobile casinos. Ignition Casino has Keno and Keno Draw, an updated version of the game. Sites like Platinum Play, Royal Vegas, and 7 Sultans have a wide variety of keno variants in their parlour games or “Other Games” categories.
These include Power Keno, Super Keno, Jumbo Progressive Keno, Cleopatra Keno, Caveman Plus Keno, and Triple Trouble Keno.
Yes, live dealer keno is played in a few live casinos. Ezugi Gaming provides live dealer keno to its license holders. Online casinos like LeoVegas, Unibet, Netbet, GDAY Live, and 1xBet use Ezugi software.
Online lottery companies in Australia & New Zealand have online drawings. Most online and mobile casinos have a Keno gaming in the “Specialty Games” category of their website. If you can’t find Keno in an online casino, check the arcade games section and, failing that, the table games section.
