The earliest forms of the game didn’t use numbers from 1-80 as we do today. Known as baige piao, or the “white pigeon ticket”, due to the fact that white pigeons were used to deliver the results of each game to outlying villages across the empire. Today’s version of the game we know as keno, the forerunner of both the modern lottery and bingo, originated in Dynastic China over 2,000 year ago.Īs perhaps the world’s oldest lottery game, keno entered popular consciousness back in the Han Dynasty, as the government used it as a way to both entertain the growing populace and generate revenue in the form of an indirect tax. Keno has a long, vibrant and rich history as a game that has changed lives, enthralled nations and traveled across time around the world.
