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Keno Odds Explained

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On this page
  1. How keno odds are calculated
  2. Why the house edge is high
  3. Reading a paytable

Keno players bet on matching 1-10 numbers out of 80 drawn balls, 20 at a time. Evaluating the odds depends on understanding permutations and probability, not intuition.

Hand marking numbers on a keno ticket with a red pen
Santeri Viinamäki · Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

How keno odds are calculated

Online keno consists of selecting 1-10 numbers from a 1-80 range. 20 numbers are drawn to determine winners.

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In practice, a 1-number match comes at a 1-in-4 rate, while hitting 10 spots would be a 1-in-8,911,711 shot.

Why the house edge is high

Keno games almost universally have a high house edge thanks to how their payouts are set. A representative 5-pick game offers 75.1% returns, making a 24.9% cut for the house. That figure is typical of a 20-35% edge overall.

The takeaway: the same game math delivers very different payout profiles from venue to venue, thanks to variable multipliers.

Reading a paytable

Understanding a keno paytable means understanding returns to player (RTP) and house edge, its inverse. Knowing that a 98% RTP means a 2% cut for the casino is essential.

Notably, a house edge plus the true payout percentages add up to 100%, meaning a lower cut means better payouts for players. This dynamics holds for all variants of the game.

The exact paytable needs to be verified for the gaming session in question. With many combinations, a representative 5-pick list might have matches proliferate - for example, if 4 matches only pay 1-1, a player might need to match 5, 6 or 7 to make it pay.