Keno Strategy: Best Keno Strategies to Win More Often

September 20, 2019

• Keno players look for ways to win big more than they should
• Combinatronics can 'solve' the game of Keno
• Use the formula in this article to calculate your Expected Return (ER) when you play real money Keno games

Keno: you either hate it or love it.

Some Casino games are just like that - you either enjoy endless sessions regardless of the house edge and your winning chances…

…or even 50 seconds at the table will feel like a lifetime.

The game of Keno is one of them.

Some play Keno for hours at land-based and online Casinos while others still wonder why a game like this one is allowed on the Casino floor.

I write this guide assuming you belong to the first kind.

You shouldn't be looking for the basics of Keno strategy if you weren't planning to play Keno online.

What Can You Expect From This Article?

I'll tell you what this article is not:

This isn't a guide for beginners who don't know what Keno is.

If you have never played this game before, you don't need my Keno strategy tips. You need this other guide on how to play Keno to get started with the game.

It's also not a guide to picking the lucky numbers to win at Keno every time you play.

Don't shop for Keno numbers online, please. Nothing good happens to those who do.

Even the best Keno strategy or system can not guarantee a 100% success rate. The collections of hot and Lucky Keno numbers you see online are irrelevant.

Keno is a gambling game. It's interesting, fast-paced, and loud. But it is not a predictable one.

I also don't plan on telling you how to pick lucky Keno numbers to increase your chances to win.

However, I do have more than a few Keno strategy tips to share with that will help you increase your chances to win.

Are you ready to start?

Keno Isn't for Suckers

Many self-proclaimed professional gamblers call Keno "a game for suckers" for its horrendous house edge.

While this is theoretically correct (the 25 to 40 percent house edge of some Keno games is indeed almost criminal), those who understand gambling know that Keno offers good value.

See the contradiction here?

On one hand, the house edge is big enough to show that you are likely to lose often and never hit the life-changing jackpot the screen promises you.

But then - think about how you play Keno.

A full game of Keno can last up to 10 minutes from start to finish and it might not cost you more than $1 or $2 to play.

Meanwhile, you get treated like a king with complimentary drinks and snacks flowing to your seat. That's because Casinos love Keno players.

Now, think about Slots.

At an average of six seconds per spin, how far will $1 or $10 bring you?

Keno is a great game to chill and fantasize about big and semi-impossible wins. It is a game for dreamers who want to have interesting but don't want to spend an unreasonable amount of cash.

Make Sure You Get a Bonus to Play Keno

While land based Casinos treat you with drinks and snacks, online Keno sites keep you on their pages with bonuses and promotions.

As a Keno player, you need to spend some time to shop around for the best Keno deals, as long as they come from reputable and trusted names.

Get a Free Keno Bonus

Sign up for a free account to activate a Keno bonus!

Receive a bonus to play online and test your Keno strategy!

Play Now

Finding the right bonus to play might not seem an important part of an effective Keno strategy, especially if you think it's all about lucky numbers.

But the extra bonus money you get when you register to play at a good online Casino is the best way to play some extra games and see if your numbers are drawn.

To do this well, you need to do some research and not rely on the usual suspects.

With online Keno not being the most popular gambling game in the world, the sites that specialize in it are often niche ones.

You can check out some of the best Casino bonuses on offer right here...

Here's a handy list of Keno games available for free and real money play:

Firefly Keno Play Now

Jackpot Keno Play Now

Classic Keno Play Now

Keno Kick Off Play Now

Keno Lab Play Now

Keno Play Now

Kenotronic Play Now

Club Keno (Mini) Play Now

Cold Numbers, You Say?

Don't base your Keno strategy on cold numbers and hot numbers - unless you want to be sure to leave your money at the Casino.

Whether you use the Quick Pick feature available at most online Casinos or you focus on your kid's birthday you have the same winning odds.

This isn't to say you should just use the Quick Pick option every time you play. Part of what makes Keno interesting is the idea to call luck with what is dear to us.

So - make each game special.

Write down a list of numbers that mean something to you, perhaps make each group challenge each other taking notes on how often one prevails over the other and, don't stress too much about the results.

In lottery-like games like Keno, you just need to sit back and wait for the numbers to be drawn.

Multi Race Cards

The best way to save some time, especially if you plan on playing the same numbers all over again, is to pick the Multi Race Cards that most online Keno sites offer you.

The Multi-Race cards allow you to play the same numbers over a series of consecutive Keno games.

Multi-Race Cards don't increase your chances to win money at Keno but help you save time and spare you from the annoyance of having to click on the same numbers times and times again.

Winning Odds in Keno

Your interests in Keno strategy tells me you don't know much about the odds in Keno and your true chances to win big on this Casino game.

** Spoiler Alert: these numbers might kill your love for Keno **

But since I promised to tell you everything you need to play Keno with the best strategy there is - let's have a look at some scary numbers.

What are the chances you will hit all the 20 numbers?

The key to winning big and to bring home the seven-figure top prize offered in many Keno games is to play for 20 numbers and nail all of them. So, the question is: how likely is this to happen?

To paraphrase Joan Kung, here's where "Learning Mathematics Helps Us Be Virtuous."

Numbers show there are 3,535,316,142,212,172,000 different ways for a group of 20 numbers to be picked from a total of 80 numbers.

Theoretically, you have more chances to win at Roulette by throwing your chips on the table while blindfolded than to hit 20 numbers and win the jackpot in Keno.

But you don't need to play all the 20 numbers, do you?

If the 20-spot ticket isn't going to be included in our games for obvious reasons, let's see what happens when you play Keno with a 6-spot ticket.

Your winning chances increase (but don't jump from your chair just yet).

Keno Odds & Probabilities

If you sum up the probabilities you have to catch 0, 1, or 2 numbers (the three occasions where you don't win anything) - things get a little on the sad side.

That's because you discover you have 83.78% chances to lose your game. And that's not to mention the 13% on the table, because that's when you win nothing more than your initial bet.

That's why a good bonus is SO important.

Adding bonus money to your bankroll you finance your losing games in the hope that when Lady Luck decides to smile at you, it's with a win of 4, 5, or 6 numbers.

In case you are curious to see the odds of hitting all the numbers, including those in between 6 and 20, the table below is for you:

Cold / Hot Numbers in Keno

Since I mentioned them earlier, let's go a little deeper on the concepts of Cold Numbers and Hot Numbers in Keno.

Cold Numbers: These are the numbers drawn less frequently. Usually, a number is added to the list of the cold numbers when it isn't drawn for 15 consecutive times.

Hot Numbers: These are the numbers that are drawn most frequently in a sequence of five Keno games. Some will tell you there are numbers that are hotter than others: don't believe them. It isn't true.

Combinatronics to Win at Keno

Here's where things get a little more complicated. If you made it till this part of my Keno strategy guide, take a deep breath and get ready to swim through numbers and calculations.

I am not going to go into all details of Combinatorics (after all, even the MIT says "it is not an easy task" to define it), but I want you to learn this:

The way Keno works allows you to calculate your expected return every time you play - and this doesn't often happen in gambling.

Combinatronics helps calculate the different ways you can arrange a portion of a larger group of items - exactly what happens with the numbers in Keno:

There's 80 of them, but only 20 help create a winning combination.

After you apply Combinatronics to understand the probabilities in Keno you can calculate the Expected Return (ER) and figure out how much money you are likely to win (or lose) in a given number of games.

Here's how you calculate : ER = Payoff x Probability

Using an example provided by the always useful Mensa Guide to Casino Gambling (see here) by Andrew Brisman, we can proceed to calculate the E (Expectation), the exact amount of money we can expect to win or lose over the long run with a given bet:

For the table above, we have that:

E = Total ER - Amount Bet: 0.7008 - 1 = 0.2992

(And that's also how you calculate the House Edge, which here is of 29.92%)

Best Sites to Play Keno Online

For players based in the US, online Keno for real money is available to play only in regulated States such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey.

If you're looking to get started playing Keno right now, then we recommend FanDuel Casino or PokerStars Casino.

For players based outside of the US, there are many options for playing Keno, including these three: 888casino, bet365 Casino and PokerStars Casino.

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