In the following centuries, this very interesting game began to spread rapidly across all continents and was played by people of all classes and ages.
Namely, in the mid-80s, a large number of Chinese railroad workers immigrated to America, with them also came Keno, which quickly became popular. It served mostly as a kind of entertainment and rest after a very hard day on the construction site.
The Americans then replaced the confusing Chinese letters with numbers, and after that game became more accessible to everyone. Also, this change significantly increased the chances of profit.
Nevada is also one of the main actors behind the many changes the former “White Pigeon” went through. While other forms of gambling were legalised in Nevada, lottery games were illegal at that time. Hence, the game received the title “Horse Race Keno”, which allowed it to be sold at casinos in Nevada. In horse race keno, the players were required to guess which horses would win fictitious races, where the numbers were representing horses.
As the game grew in popularity, the government taxed it as off-track betting. To get around taxation, casinos took out the horse race idea and shortened the name to “Keno”. This word has French or Latin roots meaning “five winning numbers”.