When playing a 20 spot game, so you choose 20 of the 80 numbers available, the odds are as follows: The odds of picking 0 correct numbers is around 1 in 843. The odds of picking 1 correct number out of 20 is around 1 in 86. The odds of picking 2 correct numbers out of 20 is around 1 in 20. The calculations further show that the best chance of winning money back in keno is by playing the 6-spot game where the house edge is around 43%. On the other hand, playing the 10-spot game will increase the casino edge to 70%, making it the most difficult type of keno. Tips and Strategies for Playing Keno.
Today, you can play keno in almost every US state that allows this type of gambling. You can choose to purchase a ticket at your local keno retailer, or you can find the game in a casino, either land-based or online.
In this article, we will be talking about the most common numbers in Keno, the mathematical chances of winning in a keno game, and the numbers people usually choose. Let’s start!
Everybody has their own lucky numbers. Whether it’s an important date in your life, like a birthday or an anniversary, or just some numbers that you consider to be your lucky ones, people usually have a lot of superstitions when playing keno.
This works both ways, as players also often avoid specific numbers. The numbers 6, 13, and 66 are generally considered bad luck, so people stay away from those in most cases. But in China, for example, people often choose the number 6 because it represents wealth, number 8 that is also connected to wealth and prosperity, and number 9 that stands for the Chinese emperor. In the US, number 7 is considered a lucky one, and because keno numbers go up to 80, people also often pick 77.
But do the numbers that you choose actually matter? Are there numbers that get drawn more frequently than others?
hot, while the ones that have a lower frequency of occurrence are referred to as cold.
While you can base your guesses on the frequency of numbers in previous draws, nothing guarantees you a win. The fact that some numbers get drawn more frequently than others is the product of pure randomness. While many keno players believe in the hot/cold strategy, that is rarely going to be beneficial to them.
This is also referred to as the Gambler’s Fallacy. People tend to believe that if a certain number comes up more frequently that it’s more likely to come up again, when in reality, all numbers have an equal chance to get drawn despite of the previous draws.
Nevertheless, Keno has 80 numbers, and their draws are not always evenly distributed. One website from New Zealand calculated that the number 27 is the most common Keno number in that country, being drawn 25.74% of the time. Close behind is number 12 with 25.65%. The number 17 seems to be rarest, as it only showed up 23.70% of the time, or 343 times less than the “hot” 27.
In the last 14 years of Keno draws in Hungary, statistics show that the most common pairs are 47 and 66. The number 47 also shows 9 more times in combination with other numbers in the top 20 pairs list. Interestingly enough, 1 and 2 are the second most frequent pair in Keno draws in Hungary.
Keno stats for Washington Lottery in the US suggest that the numbers 75, 29, 53, 65, and 42 are the most common ones (at the time of this post).
So, as you see, there’s not much of a rule when it comes to Keno numbers. Some are more frequent than others, sure, but not by that much.
The chances of you guessing one number out of 80 are 0.25%, which makes keno one of the most difficult gambling games to win. Depending on how and under which rules you play the game, the casino edge for keno can be between 40% and a massive 70%.
If you’re playing keno through the state lottery, the numbers will get picked from a rotating drum. Keno balls are all the same, which eliminates any chances that some numbers have a better probability to get drawn than others.
If you’re playing the game in an online casino, instead of the drum, the game will use a random number generator for the draws. That is a computer-based system that doesn’t use any recognizable patterns for drawing numbers. If a game is RNG-certified, that guarantees that the outcomes are fair to all players.
If you’re hoping for the highest payout in keno, which is guessing 10 out of 10 numbers, you should know that the chances for that happening are one in 10 million, making keno one of the most unlikely gambling games in which you could win a jackpot.
The calculations further show that the best chance of winning money back in keno is by playing the 6-spot game where the house edge is around 43%. On the other hand, playing the 10-spot game will increase the casino edge to 70%, making it the most difficult type of keno.
Keno is based entirely on luck, as you can’t predict which numbers get drawn, although that may be contrary to your beliefs and superstitions.
Keno doesn’t require any skills whatsoever. Even if you played the game for years and never won, all players will have the same chances of winning as you with every new draw.
Don’t play keno if you’re looking to win money regularly, as there’s no such thing as a “hot streak” in this game. To be as safe as possible, play the 6-spot game since it mathematically has the highest chance of paying out.
Other than that — good luck!
Ready to play Keno online for real money? We recommend playing at the following casinos:
Keno/kiːnoʊ/ is a lottery-like gambling game often played at modern casinos, and also offered as a game by some state lotteries.
Players wager by choosing numbers ranging from 1 through (usually) 80. After all players make their wagers, 20 numbers (some variants draw fewer numbers) are drawn at random, either with a ball machine similar to ones used for lotteries and bingo, or with a random number generator.
Each casino sets its own series of payouts, called 'paytables'. The player is paid based on how many numbers were chosen (either player selection, or the terminal picking the numbers), the number of matches out of those chosen, and the wager.
There are a wide variety of keno paytables depending on the casino, usually with a larger 'house edge' than other games offered by that casino. The house edge ranges from less than 4 percent[1] to over 35 percent.[2] The typical house edge for non-slot casino games is under 5 percent.[3]
The word keno has French or Latin roots (Fr. quine 'five winning numbers', L. quini 'five each'), but by all accounts the game originated in China. Legend has it that the invention of the game saved an ancient city in time of war, and its widespread popularity helped raise funds to build the Great Wall of China. In modern China, the idea of using lotteries to fund a public institution was not accepted before the late 19th century.[4]
Chinese lotteries are not documented before 1847 when the Portuguese government of Macau decided to grant a license to lottery operators. According to some, results of keno games in great cities were sent to outlying villages and hamlets by carrier pigeons, resulting in its Chinese name 白鸽票 báigē piào, literally 'white dove ticket', pronounced baak-gap-piu in Cantonese (on which the Western spelling 'pak-ah-pu' / 'pakapoo' was based).
The Chinese played the game using sheets printed with Chinese characters, often the first 80 characters of the Thousand Character Classic, from which the winning characters were selected.[5][6] Eventually, Chinese immigrants introduced keno to the US in the 19th century,[7] where the name was Westernized into boc hop bu[6] and puck-apu.[5] By 1866, it had already become a widely popular gambling game in Houston, Texas, under the name keno.[8]
Keno payouts are based on how many numbers the player chooses and how many of those numbers are 'hit', multiplied by the proportion of the player's original wager to the 'base rate' of the paytable. Typically, the more numbers a player chooses and the more numbers hit, the greater the payout, although some paytables pay for hitting a lesser number of spots. For example, it is not uncommon to see casinos paying $500 or even $1,000 for a 'catch' of 0 out of 20 on a 20 spot ticket with a $5.00 wager. Payouts vary widely by casino. Most casinos allow paytable wagers of 1 through 20 numbers, but some limit the choice to only 1 through 10, 12, and 15 numbers, or 'spots' as the numbers selected are known.[9]
The probability of a player hitting all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket is 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.[10]
Even though it is virtually impossible to hit all 20 numbers on a 20 spot ticket, the same player would typically also get paid for hitting 'catches' 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7 through 19 out of 20, often with the 17 through 19 catches paying the same amount as the solid 20 hit. Some of the other paying 'catches' on a 20 spot ticket or any other ticket with high 'solid catch' odds are in reality very possible to hit:
Hits | Probability |
---|---|
0 | 1 in 843.380 |
1 | 1 in 86.446 |
2 | 1 in 20.115 |
3 | 1 in 8.009 |
4 | 1 in 4.877 |
5 | 1 in 4.287 |
6 | 1 in 5.258 |
7 | 1 in 8.826 |
8 | 1 in 20.055 |
9 | 1 in 61.420 |
10 | 1 in 253.801 |
11 | 1 in 1,423.822 |
12 | 1 in 10,968.701 |
13 | 1 in 118,084.920 |
14 | 1 in 1,821,881.628 |
15 | 1 in 41,751,453.986 |
16 | 1 in 1,496,372,110.872 |
17 | 1 in 90,624,035,964.712 |
18 | 1 in 10,512,388,171,906.553 |
19 | 1 in 2,946,096,785,176,811.500 |
20 | 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,174,320.000 |
Probabilities change significantly based on the number of spots that are picked on each ticket.
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