What Time Does Keno Stop
The prize tables in keno can look a bit complicated. Here’s our quick tips on what to look out for in keno pay schedules. Each casino has its own system of payouts, which you will find set out in the Keno brochures or payout schedules around the casino or, if you’re playing Video keno you’ll find a payout table on each machine. An example is shown below. Prizes are eligible to be multiplied. EXAMPLE: $1 wager with a winning 4-spot game: BULLS-EYE. BULLS-EYE, the new KENO! Add-on game, offers larger prizes and more chances to win! At the end of each KENO! Drawing, one of the 20 winning numbers drawn is.
Copyright (C) 1995, 1998 John C. Hallyburton, Jr.
Please send corrections or additions to john@hideaway.mv.com. Thanks toDave Everett, Michael Maurer, Tom Moser, and Andy Latto for helpfulcommentary.
Page last modified: 01-11-98Table of Contents
- K1 What is Keno?
- K2 How do I play a simple keno ticket?
- K3 How do I calculate the odds of winning at keno?
- K4 What are some strategies for marking tickets?
- K5 What's a keno runner?
- K6 Can I play anything besides individual N-spot tickets?
- K7 What's this 'red game' and 'green game' I see some places?
- K8 What about video keno?
- K9 Got any good keno stories?
- Q:K1 What is Keno?
- A:K1 [John Hallyburton]
You make your guesses by marking a keno ticket, a piece of paperwith the numbers 1 thru 80 printed on it. Keno tickets are locatedat tables throughout the casino but are most readily found in thecasino's keno lounge: a room or area with chairs to sit and write.Usually crayons are provided for marking the ticket.
Before you go marking a ticket you need to decide how much money youwant to gamble on the ticket. Near any stash of tickets you are likelyto find several copies of the house's keno brochure, which tells you what the standard bets and payouts are this year. At any point in timeall casinos tend to have similar betting/payoff scales, but sometimes there are various 'house specials' available. For the sake ofsimplicity, let's assume for right now you avoid 'specials'.
Here is what an extract from a keno brochure might look like.The top line, 'Play 6 numbers' means this section of the brochurepertains to the payoffs you would be paid if you marked 6 numbers.'Numbers' are also referred to as 'spots'. If you play 6 numbers you aresaid to be 'playing a 6-spot'. You can play more or fewer than 6 spotsbut for now let's stick with 6.
The term catch refers to how many of your (6 in this case)chosen numbers match what the house draws. The term 'play $1' means youcan bet $1 on your ticket. As the table shows, you can bet more than $1if you're in a real hurry to lose your money. There is no per centadvantage to betting more than the minimum; payoffs are simply scaled bythe amount you bet. (In certain -rare- cases your return actuallydecreases when you increase your bet because the house has an upperlimit of how much money per game they will pay off, independent ofamount wagered.)
As the payoff table shows, if you play 6 numbers and catch all 6, a $1ticket will return $1500. What are the odds of this event? A bit over7500 to 1, as we will see in a later section. It does happen, but notoften. (Mrs. Mello, across the street from me when I was in high school,hit a 6-spot in Reno one weekend.)
If you 'only' catch 5 numbers the payoff is substantially less, and soon, down to a $1 payoff for catching any 3 of the 6 you selected. If youcatch fewer than 3, your ticket is worthless. Of course this is just anexample of a payoff schedule; that's why you need to check the kenobrochure to see what payoff scale the casino is using. A later sectionshows how to calculate the odds.
Note that this payoff is on a 'for' basis rather than a 'to' basis.Meaning if you collect, say, $8 for matching 4 numbers above, you'vealready paid $1 for the ticket so you're only 'winning' $7.Nevertheless it is standard keno terminology to say you 'won $8'.
You can mark a ticket with anywhere from 1 to 15 (more in some places)numbers. The more numbers you mark the more you have to catch to win.The payoffs are set such that in dollar terms the house percentage ispretty much the same regardless of how many numbers you mark. You willfind some variety in the minimum payoff so you can to some extentchoose if you want many small wins or fewer, larger wins.
Sometimes when you mark a lot of numbers the casino pays off if youcatch 0. This would be shown in the keno brochure.
- Q:K2 How do I play a simple keno ticket?
- A:K2 [John Hallyburton]
Let's say you decide to play a $1 6-spot. Pick a blank keno ticket, graba crayon and cross out your 6 choices with a plain X. On the right ofthe ticket write '$1' and beneath that the number '6' to indicate youare playing a 6-spot. Since you've already crossed out 6 numbers it'skind of redundant to write '6' but this is used for cross-checking bythe dealer, as well as being important when playing fancy combinationtickets.
Having marked your ticket you now bring it to a dealer (also called awriter) at the front of the keno lounge. It's a bit likestanding in line at a bank since the dealer positions look much liketeller windows. Hand your ticket and money to the dealer. He or shewill make a copy of your ticket and give you the copy, retaining theoriginal. Dealers don't use crayons to make copies: some keno loungesuse brushes and india ink while others use computers to generatecopies. You are supposed to verify your copy before leaving the windowbecause in case of a big win the house will verify that you actuallymarked those numbers on the original ticket you gave the dealer. Theyindex and save the original tickets and will hunt through them if youcatch a big winner. This is an anti-counterfeiting measure.
Once you have your copy you find someplace comfortable and wait for therest of the players to be served. Eventually this happens and the housedeclares the game 'closed'. All the original tickets are collected andbundled together someplace visible to a video camera, and the balls aremixed in the hopper. One of the dealers opens the portals and the chosenballs work their way out. One by one the dealer calls out the numbersand throws the switch that causes that number to light on the kenoboard. After the 20th and last number is chosen the dealers return totheir stations. The few lucky winners rush to cash in while the rest ofthe players decide what numbers to pick for the next game. U.S. tax lawrequires winning tickets to be cashed immediately after the game;otherwise casinos could deduct unclaimed payouts as potential futureliabilities. At least, this is what the casinos claim. Whether thereactually is such a tax law on the books is an openquestion. Certainly casinos don't want to keep original tickets andother records any longer than absolutely necessary, so a short timelimit is obviously convenient for them.
If you have a losing ticket for a game and you want to play the sameticket for the next game, you don't need to mark up another blankticket. Just hand the losing ticket to the dealer along with the moneyand they will make you another copy. Actually this works for winningtickets, too. If you cash in a ticket that pays off, the dealer willprobably ask 'Want to play it again?' If you answer yes you'll get backa new ticket and your winnings, less the cost of the ticket for the nextgame.
- Q:K3 How do I calculate the odds of winning at keno?
- A:K3 [John Hallyburton]
Occasionally I get email requests for 'the keno formula' from peoplewho want something to plug into a spreadsheet. There is no simpleformula, though if you slog through this section you can come up witha complicated formula.
The proper buzzword for keno odds is 'hypergeometric distribution'. Butas usual, understanding the math is far less important thanunderstanding how to apply it properly. First, let's do the basics: ifyou mark N spots, the probability of hitting exactly K of them is givenby the formula:The expression C(X,Y) represents the number of possible ways to selectY items from a larger collection of X items, where order of selectionis unimportant. Many calculators, spreadsheets and math libraries havea built-in facility for calculating this function. Both Lotus 1-2-3 ™and Excel ™ name this funcion COMBIN(n,r); it is also known asthe 'binomial coefficient' function. (Caution: even if defined by yourspreadsheet you may find the numbers involved too large to be handledby your spreadsheet program). Direct evaluation comes from thefollowing formula:... where 'X!', pronounced 'X factorial', is the product of all wholenumbers from 1 to X. Thus 4! = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 = 24. As a degenerate case,0! = 1. So C(5,3) = 5!/(3!x2!) = 120/12 = 10. There are 10 ways toselect 3 items from a bag of 5 items. Again, order of selection isunimportant. Note that N! = N x (N-1)!, for N>0. This can be useful insimplifying calculation.
What Time Does Keno Stop In Ga
Here's a sample of how to calculate C(80,6) by hand:Now we start canceling: 6 into 78 13 times, 5 into 80 16 times:Cancel some more: 4 into 16 4 times, 3 into 75 25 times:Finally, 2 into 4 2 times. You can always divide allnumbers in the bottom into the numbers on top. We are left with: the number of ways to select 6 items from 80.
Notice if you select 6 items from a group of 80, you are 'leaving' 74items unselected. They form a group of their own! That means C(80,74) =C(80,6). Whenever you select a group, you actually select two groups,the 'ins' and 'outs'. In other words: C(X,Y) = C(X,X-Y). This amountsto switching the order of the multiplication of the bottom half of thefraction in the definition of C(X,Y).
For reference, C(80,20) = 3.535316142 x 10^18 or about 3 1/2 quintillionways for the house to draw 20 balls. That number is so huge it isunlikely any random keno draw has ever happened twice in all ofhistory. Well, maybe one repetition somewhere, if you'regenerous enough estimating how many games have taken place overtime.
Let's use the formula to calculate our chances for hitting a 6-spot:Rarely do we hit all 6. Let's calculate the whole 6-spot table from theabove formula. Note these numbers are independent of the house payoffas they are merely the probability of an event happening, regardless of whetherany money is wagered.The total should always be 1, or very close due to rounding, since oneof the above outcomes will happen.
To find the probability of one of several outcomes, you add the numbersfor each entry. In the above 6-spot table the chances of catching'exactly 0 OR exactly 1' are 0.52951. Meaning more than half the timeyou'll catch at most one number on your 6-spot ticket. Similarly,roughly 1 in 6 tickets will be a winner according to the payoff tablepresented above. (Since Catch3+Catch4+Catch5+Catch6 probabilities total0.16159 or 1/6.19).
Of course the chance of having a winning ticket is not asinteresting as knowing what the expected return is. This iscalculated by adding together the expected return for everypossible outcome. Now for any possible outcome you can calculatethe expected return for that outcome by multiplying the payofffor that outcome by the probability of that outcome. This leadsdirectly to the following set of calculations, using the 6-spotpayoff and odds already presented:For this payoff schedule you can expect to receive a return of 71 centsfor every dollar bet. The house advantage is a whopping 29%. While thisis a huge advantage for the house, remember that the overhead of keno isalso the highest of any casino game. There is plenty of floorspacedevoted to the game, a large number of dealers, and relatively smallbets are the norm. It would not be profitable for a casino to run kenoat a much lower 'take'. At least, this is what the casinos say whenasked about the high take. While it seems reasonable, nobody in thebusiness has actually offered any proof that this is thecase.
- Q:K4 What are some strategies for marking tickets?
- A:K4 [John Hallyburton]
As with roulette you can 'chase the old man', meaning play those numbersthat seem to be coming up more often than the others. The theory isthat they will keep coming up again in the future. The reality is theydon't come up any more than chance dictates. Or you can 'let the oldman chase you', meaning play numbers that haven't come up in recentgames, on the theory that they'll start coming up in order to make thelong-run results for each number even out. Again, the reality is thatthe balls have no memory. Number 47 may not have come up in the last 10games, but that has no predictive value. In such a case the moleculesthat make up ball number 47 do not strain themselves to 'even thescore'.
The keno playing card is divided into an upper and lower half. My uncleDave would always be sure to spread his picks evenly across both halvesin order to 'play the whole card'. His theory was that if you justpicked 6 numbers from say the lower half then you wouldn't catch as manyas if you picked 3 numbers from the lower half and 3 from the upperhalf. After all, most every game will see about half the house numbersdrawn in the upper part and half drawn in the lower part. But thereality is that it doesn't matter, the balls don't care what the playingcards look like. The house could print every card differently. A set ofnumbers that produces a balanced card for one configuration might behighly unbalanced in another. This will not cause one set of numbers tobe drawn more often than any other set.
While not exactly a strategy, some players may find it entertaining toplay somebody else's losing ticket. If the guy next to you gets up toleave, take his losing ticket to the dealer and say 'Play itagain'. This takes a certain amount of timing, judgement and chutzpah (aby-product of several Rumple Minze's on the house), but can be fun ifpulled off well.
- Q:K5 What's a keno runner?
- A:K5 [John Hallyburton]
A typical comped lunch in Las Vegas takes just about long enough to play(and lose) four to five keno games.
Usually keno runners cruise the casino calling out 'keno?' to no one inparticular. If you wish to engage the services of a runner, merelyanswer by saying the word 'keno!' in a louder tone. The runner willstop by your table, wait for you to mark and pay for a keno ticket, giveyou any change, and continue cruising.
The runner will take your ticket to the keno lounge and have a dealermake a copy just as you would. Usually the keno runners are the last tobe served before the game is closed. The runners wait for the numbers tobe drawn and then return to their customers with their tickets andwinnings. They will also have a keno ticket with holes punched for everynumber drawn, so you can lay the punched ticket over your ticket andcount spots.
While the casino makes every effort to ensure all runners make it backto the lounge before the game is closed, they cannot guarantee that yourticket will get played in the next game, nor that the dealer will copyyour ticket correctly. Surely there are apocryphal stories of runnerswho were late to the lounge and caused a player to miss a 10-spot. Youhave to be willing to accept that additional risk if you use a kenorunner.
Fellow r.g.o-g'er Dave Everett adds:
'Just about everyone who performs a service for people in a casino worksfor tips, and the keno runners are no exceptions. If a keno runnerservices your bets for you, it is customary to tip a small amount evenif you don't win. You are not expected to tip every game, but, say youare having lunch, and the keno runner hits your table and services yourbets 5 times, and you never win. You should tip a dollar. You know whenyou're just about done eating. When the runner comes to your table withand checks your losing ticket and asks if you want to play it again,that's the appropriate time to say 'No, thanks; here's a dollar for yourtrouble.' Personally, I tip a dollar the very first time the runnercomes back (and not again if I don't win anything). I've found that Iget excellent runner service that way.'Now if you hit anything substantial, the keno runner will expectsomething. You don't have to be super-generous. My personal rule ofthumb is $2 for a $10 to $40 win; 5% for larger wins up to $200. You canget away with a little less, but don't stiff them. Yes, tippingdecreases your expectation, but if you employ a keno runner, you arebuying a service. If you don't want to tip, run your own tickets up tothe window. If you hit big enough to tip the runner, tip her/him when(s)he brings you your winnings. I *guarantee* you'll get excellentservice thenceforth. They do share information, too. If you tip onerunner, (s)he will pass on the information to the relief or replacementrunner. If you don't, that info will get passed on, too.'
- Q:K6 Can I play anything besides individual N-spot tickets?
- A:K6 [John Hallyburton]
A 'combination' is a ticket that combines several different choices.For example you can mark, ohh, 3 numbers on the top half of a ticketand, say, 4 numbers on the bottom half of the same ticket. Suppose youwant to play the top 3 numbers as a 3-spot, the bottom 4 numbers as a4-spot and the whole ticket as a 7-spot. Now you can, if you want, mark3 separate tickets and pay $1 each, and cash any winnersindividually. OR you can play a combination ticket, which is just aspecial way to combine those three tickets into one. Here's how: markyour 7 numbers and draw a thick line separating the 3 top numbers andthe bottom 4. Then over on the right of the ticket you write: '3$';below that '1/3' (shorthand for 1 3-spot); below that ('1/4', for 14-spot) and below that '1/7', for (you guessed it) 1 7-spot. Then belowTHAT you write '$1', meaning you are betting $1 on each of thosecombinations. This is actually 3 separate wagers and if you win you willbe paid off as if you had submitted 3 separate tickets. It's just kenoshorthand.
Speaking of shorthand, the notation: '$3';'1/3';'1/4';'1/7';'$1' is thisFAQ entry's notation for writing those numbers in a column off to theright of the card, as inYou can get even more exotic. Say in addition to the 3- and 4-spots youwant to play a 2-spot in the lower left. Now a simple horizontal lineisn't enough to separate the groups of numbers you choose. What youwould do is circle the groups of 2, 3 and 4 to clarify how you want togroup your ticket. Then off to the right you explain how you arebetting. Are you playing a 2-spot, 3-spot and 4-spot? How about the5-spot, 6-spot and 7-spot that comes from combining the 2-, 3-, and4-spots in various groupings? How about the 9-spot that comes fromplaying all 9 numbers at once? Once again, you indicate what you areplaying by making notations on the right of the ticket. You don't haveto play everything. You can play the 2-spot, 3-spot, 4-spot and 7-spotby marking your ticket with: '$4'; '1/2'; '1/3'; '1/4'; '1/7'; '$1'.But beware: if your 2-spot and 4-spot come up, you'll get paid the $85or so total for catching the 2-and 4-spot but you won't get paid forcatching the 6-spot formed by combining them because you dind'tplay that option. You would have had to pay another $1 anddesignate '1/6' on your ticket.
If you mark a single spot and circle it, it is sometimes called a 'kingnumber' and is usually combined with other groups or even other kingnumbers. But it's basically a group-of-one.
Even more complicated are 'way tickets' which are essentiallycombination tickets that involve a large number of uniform choicesintertwined in all possible ways. A simple example involves picking,say, 5 sets of two numbers each. Maybe you choose 11-22 (mark and circlethese two), 4-25 (mark and circle these two), 38-40 (mark and circlethese), 64-65 (mark and circle these) and 76-77, also marked andcircled.
Now what you want to play is every possible 6-spot that can be formed bycombining the circled numbers. With 5 groups of two numbers, noting youneed 3 groups of 2 to form 6 numbers, there are C(5,3) = 10 possibleways to form 6-spots out of those groups of two. So far you've got aticket with 5 circles of 2 numbers each. To the right of the ticket youwrite: '$10';'10/6';'$1'. That is, you are paying $10 for the ticket,playing 10 ways of 6 spots at $1 per way. For another dollar you couldhave also played the 10-spot that is the total collection of 10 numbersthat you circled. That ticket would be marked '$11';'10/6';'1/X';'$1'. The 'X' is keno notation for '10' when it denotes the numberof spots being played. (No, 'V' is not used for '5').
Beyond complicated, into the realm of hairy, is the 190-way 8-spotticket. Nearly every keno brochure features this to entice players intowhat looks like it must be a sure thing. The player draws a horizontalline to divide the card into upper and lower halves. Then draw avertical line between each column as well. This has the effect ofdividing the card into 20 columns of 4 numbers each, with the intent ofplaying all possible ways of forming 8-spot tickets from pairs ofcolumns of 4 numbers each. Since it takes two columns to form an8-spot, and we have 20 columns, there are a total of C(20,2) = 190 waysto combine 2 columns, i.e., create 8-spots.
If you were to play this ticket at the $1 rate it would cost you$190 per game. You are welcome to make that wager, but thecasinos usually allow you to bet less than the nominal minimumwhen you are playing way tickets. For example, many casinos willlet you bet 25 cents per way on this type of ticket. At the25-cent level you would write this up as:Since you are playing 25 cents per way, any payoffs would be atone-fourth of the $1 payoff scale. When the numbers are drawn for thisticket you hope an entire column of 4 lights up, then it's just a matterof waiting to see how much you'll collect.
As you can see, way tickets can be both expensive and exciting. Butlike combination tickets they are really nothing more than kenoshorthand for a large number of individual tickets. Consequently theyoffer no financial advantage or disadvantage over regular tickets.
- Q:K7 What's this 'red game' and 'green game' I see some places?
- A:K7 [John Hallyburton]
- Q:K8 What about video keno?
- A:K8 [John Hallyburton]
- Q:K9 Got any good keno stories?
- A:K9 [John Hallyburton]
Back in the '60s keno games featured a maximum payout of $25,000 pergame. One Friday night at Binion's Horseshoe they had back-to-back$25,000 winners. Word got around Fremont street mighty fast. By 6amSaturday morning Binion's had made far more than $50,000 profit from akeno game that had suddenly become the most popular pastime in downtownLas Vegas.
More recently a Canadian casino was 'hit' for a fair take by someone whonoticed the machines always produced the same numbers in themorning. (Does anyone want to send me the details?) Basically themachine was missing a computer chip and the casino had turned themachine off at night. So in the morning the random numbers were alwaysstarted off from the same base instead of keying off something trulyrandom like the time it took for a player to feed a coin. But the guywho discovered this got a bit too greedy and hit too many jackpots, andthe truth came out.