- Fact-checked by Josh Miller
- Edited by Diana Westfield
How keno works is closer to a fast lottery than to any casino table game. You choose some numbers from 1 to 80, twenty are drawn, and you’re paid according to how many of yours came up. Draws can come round every few minutes, which is both the appeal and the catch. The free CasinoCalcs keno odds calculator gives the exact odds for every pick size.
How keno works, step by step
You choose how many numbers to play, called spots, usually anywhere from 1 to 10 and sometimes up to 20. Then you pick that many numbers between 1 and 80, or let a quick pick do it.
Twenty numbers are drawn. Each of yours that appears is a catch, and the paytable for your spot count says what each number of catches pays. Pick 4 and catch all 4, and you might be paid 100 times your stake or so. Catch 2 and you might get your money back. Catch fewer and you lose.
What are the odds in keno?
Since 20 of the 80 numbers are drawn, any single number has a 25% chance of coming up. Pick just one spot and you’ll catch it one game in four.
It gets steep quickly as you add spots. Catching all 4 of 4 happens about once in 326 games. Catching 10 out of 10, the dream ticket, is 1 in 8,911,711, worse than plenty of national lottery prizes. Play the numbers through the keno odds calculator and you’ll see why the top prizes can afford to look so big.
The paytable is everything
Here’s the bit most players skip. Your numbers don’t matter, since every combination has the same chance, but the paytable matters enormously. Two games with identical draws can pay very differently for the same catches, and that difference is the house edge.
Keno’s edge is usually high. Plenty of games keep 20% to 30% of what’s staked, and some keep more, which makes it one of the most expensive games in the building. Online versions are sometimes kinder. When you compare games, compare the paytables, not the graphics.
Why speed matters
A draw every few minutes means a lot of games in an evening. At £2 a game and twenty games an hour, that’s £40 an hour staked, and with a 25% edge the expected cost is about £10 an hour. It’s worth working that out before you sit down rather than after.
Hot and cold numbers
Keno screens love showing which numbers have come up most lately. Like any random draw, past results have no say in the next one; a “cold” number is just as likely as a “hot” one. If you’d rather not choose at all, the keno number generator picks for you.
Related: lottery odds calculator, combination calculator.