Keno Machine Strategy
Looking for winning keno patterns is an important part of playing the game. And learning how to take advantage of those patterns can be a benefit to the player.
If you’re familiar with casino gambling, you know that casinos make their profits from having an edge (an advantage) on every game they have on the floor. However, there are rare instances when casinos have made mistakes. When that happens things can go very wrong for the casino. You’re about to read a fascinating story, as reported by Steve Bourie, about one of those instances that occurred many years ago at a casino in Canada.
Casino de Montreal first opened for business in October 1993 and one of the games it offered was keno. It was the typical keno game that uses the numbers from 1 to 80. Twenty numbers out of the 80 are selected randomly and players try to guess which numbers will be chosen. In this particular game, players guess anywhere from 1 to 20 numbers.
Interestingly, the casino offered the pick 20 on two types of keno games – mechanical and electronic. That’s a lot of keno patterns. In the mechanical version the numbers were printed on 80 standard ping pong-type balls and were chosen by a blower system that mixed the balls and then allowed the balls to escape to a chute one-at-a-time so the numbers could be called out. The electronic version used a computer chip called a random number generator (RNG) to determine its 20 numbers. These electronic machines had been used in numerous Las Vegas casinos for years and are known to be reliable.
Daniel Corriveau was a freelance computer consultant who enjoyed using his skills to look for patterns in winning lottery numbers. When the new casino opened in his home province of Quebec he decided to turn his attention to the casino’s keno game. Eventually, he thought he detected specific keno patterns in the electronic version of the game and he went to the casino on April 10, 1994 to test out his theory. By the end of the evening he had hit 19 out of 20 numbers three consecutive times, plus some other number combinations for a total win of $620,000.
Keno has 80 numbers. A virtual machine called a hopper randomly draws 20 numbers (in a real casino the machine draws numbered balls). The best keno strategy is to go with whatever bet type. Strategy in keno. It is even considered by many gamblers and the casino games community a pure. Winning Four Card Keno Strategy Video keno fanatics quickly realized the advantages of using additional cards to cover the keno board with tickets and making sure that every drawn number will match one of their picks somewhere on the board.
Knowing that it was statistically impossible to accomplish such a feat, the casino personnel immediately shut down the electronic game and decided not to pay Courriveau until they conducted an inquiry into what had happened. After all, they wanted to make sure that there wasn’t some elaborate scheme underway to defraud them.
After conducting a full-scale police investigation, including a polygraph exam, the casino called a press conference 17 days later to announce that Courriveau had legitimately won his bets and presented him with a check for $620,000.
So how was that possible? Did Mr. Courriveau really discover a winning system for predicting keno numbers? In a way he did – for that particular machine. The key was to be found in the keno patterns.
It turns out that there was an unknown bug, a problem, with the electronic version of the keno game. Although a RNG can literally produce hundreds of millions of different number combinations it always has to have a starting point, or seed, to begin its calculations. It then uses that number to do the math to come up with a new number which then becomes the seed for the next calculation. It then uses that number to do the math for the next calculation and that result becomes the seed for the next calculation. This process is repeated continuously. The one thing to keep in mind, however, is that because the calculations are always the same the RNG needs a different seed each time or else it will come up with the same numbers. In other words, if the starting seed doesn’t change, the RNG will simply come up with the same results time after time.
As mentioned before, the electronic machines had a history of working perfectly in Las Vegas, but in Las Vegas the casinos are open 24 hours a day. The machines are on all the time. It was different in Montreal. The casino didn’t operate on a 24-hour schedule. The machine was shut off at some point every night for several hours. When the machine was turned on the next day it always started its calculations at the initial seed which was programmed into it. Since the seed never changed, the machine simply kept repeating the same keno patterns of numbers. Mr. Courriveau was lucky enough to spot the pattern but anyone probably could have done the same had they kept a history of the winning numbers. After the problem, the casino still offered keno, but only the mechanical version. The electronic keno game never reopened after Courriveau’s big win.
Discover how to take advantage of keno patterns using your own numbers for any spot (3 through 10): Keno Smart Charts Download
The attraction of playing 20-Card Keno is having more opportunities to win. Picking more numbers in a single game gives you a better chance of winning something. As an example, if you’re playing 20 different cards, with a different 5 spot on each card, you have a better chance of hitting a 5 spot than if you were only playing on one card, right? But even if you hit your 5 spot on one of the cards, how about the 19 cards that are losers or low pay winners? And remember, even though you’re playing 20 cards, you’ll, more often than not, lose or low pay on all 20 cards.
To be fair, you need the low paying winners to help you keep playing for a longer period of time. But the low paying wins alone will not normally let you leave the casino as a winner. They just allow you to keep putting more money into the machine. Especially if you’re playing 20 Card Keno. That’s where the idea of ‘overlapping’ can really help. And that’s why I created the 20-Card Keno Smart Charts™.
When you overlap, some of the numbers of a particular spot will be repeated on the other cards. The result will be that when you win – you’ll win bigger. That’s because, when you win, you’ll win more often on multiple cards. Even the low wins will be multiplied by the amount of cards that the repeated numbers are played on. This technique makes for some exciting action when you’re playing 20 card keno but, admittedly, you’ll experience increased volatility. The trade off is that when you do win – you can really win big.
Look at it this way; If you play completely different numbers on each card on a 20-card keno machine, you have virtually no chance of winning a jackpot on all 20 cards. But if you play less numbers with some of the numbers overlapping each other, you could actually win on all twenty cards! And yes, that really does happen.
Video Keno Machine Strategy
The following 20-card keno video illustrates this better
Super Keno Machine Strategy
What’s particularly important when overlapping in 20-card keno is evenly distributing your numbers. You’ll want to have a balance of unique base numbers and those that you overlap. The Smart Charts™ allow you to easily do that without making errors.