Talk:Keno

Keno played in most convenience stores?

Since when is Keno played in "most" convenience stores, as written in the introductory paragraph to this article? I assume the writer meant that many convenience stores and gas stations in the United States (and elsewhere?) sell Keno tickets for their state lottery drawings. I don't know if the statement is true or not. But as written, it sounds like it was penned by an idiot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.73.75.198 (talk) 19:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC) I no longer see reference to "convenience stores" but yes, many lotteries offer Keno as an option and yes, you can buy the tickets in the convenience stores. The California Lottery offers "Hot Spot", which is nothing more than keno. And people who contribute should NOT be called idiots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.15.211.49 (talk) 21:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

History and origin

Is it definitely Chinese in origin? The first citation of the word in OED is 1814 when an American sailor called Benjamin F Palmer used it in his diary. He spelled it 'keeno'. It isn't clear from the context exactly what sort of game this was, but it predates the immigration from China of railroad workers mentioned in the article. In 1866 (29 July) a NYTimes journalist describes the game as it was played in Houston, Texas. He refers to it as 'very like the child's game of lotto', comments that the players (all men) are seated round long tables and that when the caller drew a ball out of a case the players 'marked it on their cards with a button'. A winner announced his success by shouting 'Keno!' Is this like the modern game? I am not a player. It sounds just like bingo to me. RLamb (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Modern Keno

My goodness, who wrote this section? "Nowadays" (para. 5)? "In days of old" (para. 5)??? Who talks like this? This so poorly written. Can someone take a stab at cleaning it up and at least trying to make it sound slightly more scholarly and less Mark Twainy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.73.75.198 (talk) 19:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Footnotes

The seemingly interesting footnotes have been removed but the anchors in brackets are still there, I don't know how to edit pages well enough to find the links in the edit history. 81.102.70.118 12:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

My bad - I deleted a bunch of spam that got entered in that section and inadvertantly deleted the footnotes too. Thanks for pointing it out. Rray 14:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't add that tag, but if you think the tone of the article is encyclopedic, you should go ahead and be bold and remove the tag from the page. Whoever added the tag should have included a discussion of the problem on the talk page anyway. Rray (talk) 04:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There is still a lot of spam in the references, I will try and clean it up since there are some extra links that there are better resources.Antoifox (talk) 21:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

class="autosigned">—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.15.211.49 (talk)

Worldwide tag

I removed this tag as no justification was added for it here on the talk page. If someone wants to explain why this article doesn't reflect a worldwide view of the subject here so that we can discuss it, then they should do so and re-add it. -- Rray (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Clean up

The article is very informative in parts but breaks down into first person and a jocular tone at times. I would attempt a cleanup but I have no idea about gambling. Padness (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This article isn't even close to being well-written enough to warrant removing the cleanup tag. The part of the lead regarding how keno pays out is almost incomprehensible. A passage later on the pages indicates something about it being "unfortunate" that keno is considered a bad bet. That's imprecise language at best, and opinionated weak writing at worst. (I know I indicated otherwise in an earlier thread on this page, but after reading this article a little more closely, I realized that this article is in dire need of cleaning up still.) Rray (talk) 00:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I've re-added the cleanup tag. The article still suffers from some really long almost incomprehensible sentences, and the tense jumps around. Much of it is wordier than it needs to be. I've fixed some of it, but I don't have time to edit the whole thing tonight. Rray (talk) 03:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Another problem the article has is inconsistent capitalization of the word "keno". Keno isn't a proper noun and shouldn't be capitalized unless it's at the beginning of a sentence or part of a title. I've cleaned some of these up, but I'm sure more instances of this exist. Rray (talk) 23:26, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources?

Some of the sources cited in the article seem pretty unreliable to me. They look like generic, anonymous articles used on online casino or online casino portal sites. The biggest problem is that they're anonymous and might not be reliable. If someone has better sources to add, that would be a big help. (The history section's citations are particularly poor quality, I think.) Rray (talk) 23:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, the section about the detailed mathematical analysis is completely unreferenced. I added a refimprove tag to the article to indicate that more sources are needed. If sources aren't added, that section should be removed until sourcing can be added. Rray (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The stated probability of hitting 20 out of 20 spots is incorrect. The article states that the odds are "1 in 3,535,316,142,212,180,000," but calculating ${80 \choose 20}$ on an arbitrary-precision calculator (i.e., without rounding) actually yields 3,535,316,142,212,174,320. —24.60.246.88 (talk) 10:53, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Results

I know original research doesn't belong in the article but I thought the talk-page readers might be interested. The bus I take to Foxwoods casino, to play poker, gives us free Keno tickets that would cost twenty dollars if we bought them. Over the past couple of years I have made forty-eight such trips. So I got tickets "worth" $960. On those tickets, I have cashed out for a little over five hundred dollars. While the free money was nice, this illustrates what a very bad gamble this game is. I would not buy a Keno ticket from Mother Theresa. 63.117.187.62 (talk) 16:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Will in New Haven63.117.187.62 (talk) 16:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would like correct your assumptions (keno is a rip off). You should not gauge the game of keno by "coupon" paytables that are used at Foxwoods for a free giveaway. These paytables aren't designed to give a standard $1.00 wager payout to players. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.15.211.49 (talk) 21:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether a game is fair is usually determined by expected payoff. The payoffs vary from casino to casino, but the expected payoff will be certainly be less than the purchase price. Otherwise the casino would not offer the game. See the article for a discussion of the astronomically (&lit!) high odds against winning. Sympleko (Συμπλεκω) 23:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)