The history of Keno, is as interesting as perhaps the World War-1 or the Great Wall of China. It dates back to the ancient times when the leader of the Han Dynasty, Cheung Leung, created a game similar to Keno way back in 200Ad. The people in the city had refused to part with their hard earned wages. To fund his army who were fighting a war that had been going on for several years, he created this game since he thought the game of chance would be the best avenue to raise the money. The symbols used for the game were actually the first 120 symbols of the poem, The Thousand Character Classic, which was prior used as a romantic numbering system, since no two characters were the same.

The success of the game, resulted in it being adopted all over china. The game was also used to raise funds for the Great Wall of China. The game also started to be known as White Pigeon Game, as carrier pigeons often used to relay the winning numbers to remote towns and villages. The game continued as such until the introduction of the Western Hemisphere.

In the 19 th century, when the Chinese went to North America to build the railroads, they took the Keno game along with them. Due to Chinese Symbols used in the game, the game soon came to be known as the Chinese Lottery. Soon the symbols gave way to numbers, and the amount of numbers reduced to 80 from the earlier 120, in the city of San Fransisco, where it really caught on with the local people. The name of the game continued to be called as Chinese Lottery until the early 20 th century, when gambling was legalized in the state of Nevada. But, since the legalization of gambling did not cover lotteries, the name was once again changed and this time was renamed as Horse Race Keno. The reason for the name being the idea that numbers were the horses and you wanted your horse to come first. Soon after, Nevada levied a tax on all Off Track betting. In order to avoid the tax, the name was shortened to Keno, as it is popularly known today.