NUMBER GAMES
Keno: the most expensive numbers on the lobby screen
Keno is a lottery draw dressed as a casino game and it is priced like a lottery. Online paytables usually return somewhere between 92% and 95%, and the land-based version is far worse than that.
Assumes a typical online paytable returning about 94%. Change the ruleset and every figure on this page moves.
Every bet, with what it costs
| Bet | Pays | House edge | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick 4, online paytable | to the published table | 6% | Middle of the usual online range |
| Pick 8, online paytable | to the published table | 7% | Longer odds, similar cost per dollar |
| Pick 10 with a top prize | to the published table | 8% | The top line is doing the advertising |
| Land-based or lottery keno | to the published table | 25% | A different product wearing the same name |
Cheapest and most expensive on the same table are 6% and 25%. Nothing about the room changes between those two rows; the only difference is which one you tapped.
What an hour costs
Stake, times rounds an hour, times the edge. That is the whole formula and pace is the term people forget: the same game dealt twice as fast costs twice as much. The full table across every game is in what an hour costs.
How the pricing works
Twenty numbers are drawn from eighty. You pick between one and ten and get paid on how many of yours came up, against a table the operator publishes. Change the table and you change the return, and there is no standard table the way there is a standard roulette wheel.
This is why a single house edge figure for keno is close to meaningless. What is fair to say is the range: online builds cluster between 92% and 95% return, which is a cost between five and eight cents per dollar staked, and that is several times what a table game costs.
Why people play it anyway
The top prize on a ten-spot is enormous relative to the stake, and enormous relative to the stake is the product. Nobody plays keno for the return figure, the same way nobody buys a lottery ticket for the return figure.
The honest framing is that it is a lottery draw you can run four times a minute. Treat the stake as the price of the draw rather than as a bankroll and the maths stops mattering, which is roughly how it works.
On a phone
- Eighty numbers on a phone grid means each one is about four millimetres across. Quick pick exists for a reason and it does not change your expected cost by a cent.
- The draw takes eight seconds and the auto-play toggle runs it again immediately. Two hundred and forty draws an hour is achievable and it is a lot of staking.
- Paytables vary by build and by how many numbers you pick, and they are usually two taps into an info panel. That panel is the game.
Where the tables are
40 of the operators on our board carry live tables, 5900 between them. More tables mostly means a shorter wait at your stake level rather than a better product.
Keno questions people actually type
What is the house edge in keno?
6% at a typical online paytable returning about 94%. That is C$6.00 for every C$100 staked, and the worst bet on the same felt costs 25%.