Most online casinos for American players now have a certain category of games called ‘ The Specialty games’. It usually includes a bunch of interesting games, but keno certainly takes the central place among them all. Keno is a game with a long history. It has Chinese roots actually and appeared approximately 200 BC! Can you imagine that nowadays you can just visit any site and enjoy this ancient game either for fun or for real money. In this article we are going to explain you the rules of keno offered in online casinos for American players and differences in its software produced by various developing companies.
So, keno is a game of luck. You can’t master this game even if you play it for a long time. The outcome of keno depends on which numbers you selected on the keno ticket. Keno doesn’t actually differ from a traditional lottery. After you enter the keno game on any gambling site you like, you will always see a field with numbers. That’s keno ticket. At the bottom of it you will usually see four buttons: Clear, Play 1, Play 5 and Play 10. To the right of the ticket a round history table is located showing how many numbers you hit correctly. To the left of the ticket you will see a payout table. You can’t help noticing that in the very beginning it’s practically empty. The payouts depend on how many numbers you decided to pick. By the way, you should be aware that various software providers offer you to pick a different number of spots. For example, most games by Microgaming, Rival Gaming and so on offer to mark up to 15 numbers. However, playing Cryptologic software you can select only 10 spots at most. Therefore, as you can see, keno by Cryptologic offers you somehow less betting options that doesn’t change the payout ratio though.
So, let’s assume that you are playing Rival Gaming software for instance and therefore can choose up to 15 spots. Pressing a Play 1 button you will keep this layout for one round only. Pressing Play 5 or Play 10 buttons you will play 5 or 10 rounds respectively with the same layout. By the way, if you want to minimize your involvement in the game, you can easily press the QUIKPICK or Automatic Select button placed at the bottom of the round history table.
When selecting the keno software, you should definitely check out the number of hits that are required for a payout. For example, playing keno in any Microgaming casinos you should guess at least 3 out of 15 correctly to get a certain payout. When playing keno in Real Time Gaming internet casinos, you should guess at least 7 out of 15 spots right, to get a certain payout. You can ask why play keno in RTG powered casinos then if the requirements are so strict. But look at the payouts offered! Microgaming software offers much lower payouts than Real Time Gaming software. Therefore, we can make a conclusion that low rollers will probably choose Microgaming online casinos, while high rollers who are used to risking a lot, will certainly appreciate Real Time Gaming keno.
So, what else can be said about keno? In general, it’s a really exciting and risky game. However, it has a huge house edge of 20% or even 30%. The most effective keno strategy is probably to mark as may spots as are allowed by the game software. By the way, some gambling sites even offer a substantial jackpot for hitting all 15 spots on the keno ticket! Sounds really appealing but the chance of hitting such a jackpot is really tiny, unfortunately. Today you can enjoy keno in practically all online casinos for American players. Check out the Specialty and Other Games categories of the lobby.