Feature Keno is All About the Numbers by Michael Shackleford, WizardOfOdds.com 29 May 2001
Land casinos generally pay back about 70 to 75 cents on the dollar in keno, but the returns at online casinos can vary substantially between different software providers. What does that mean? Choose carefully where you play.
Microgaming, Cryptologic, Boss Media, and Unified Gaming are the four largest brands of online casino software manufacturers to offer a keno game, but there is a 30% difference between the highest and lowest pay back. Here's the breakdown on who pays what.
The best online keno offered is Microgaming's pick 13, with a return of 96.54%. The worst, on the other hand, is Boss Media's pick 4 with a return of 67.39%.
Overall, pay backs for Microgaming and Unified Gaming are very close, with returns ranging from 92.09% to 96.54%, except for the pick 1 which always pays 3:1 for a return of 75%.
Cryptologic and Boss Media fall far behind these two, however, with returns ranging from a low of 67.39% to a high of 73.79%, again not counting the pick 1.
The following table shows the return for all four brands, according to the number of picks.
Marks
Microgaming
Unified Gaming
CryptoLogic
Boss Media
1
75.00%
75.00%
75.00%
n/a
2
92.09%
92.09%
72.15%
68.04%
3
93.04%
94.35%
73.54%
69.38%
4
93.79%
94.55%
73.79%
67.39%
5
93.87%
94.79%
73.22%
67.57%
6
93.79%
94.62%
71.61%
70.64%
7
96.35%
94.58%
72.41%
69.56%
8
92.90%
94.61%
72.71%
67.47%
9
92.86%
94.66%
71.87%
64.53%
10
94.54%
94.74%
72.35%
69.61%
11
93.10%
n/a
n/a
n/a
12
94.22%
n/a
n/a
n/a
13
96.54%
n/a
n/a
n/a
14
95.42%
n/a
n/a
n/a
15
95.19%
n/a
n/a
n/a
The best way to highlight the winner is to show the specific pay table and probabilities for Microgaming's pick 13.
Microgaming Pick 13
Match
Pays
Probability
Return
0
1
1 in 60.99
0.016396
1
0
1 in 11.26
0
2
0
1 in 4.84
0
3
0.5
1 in 3.67
0.136368
4
0.5
1 in 4.40
0.113640
5
3
1 in 7.94
0.377635
6
4
1 in 21.05
0.190005
7
5
1 in 81.20
0.061576
8
20
1 in 458.06
0.043663
9
80
1 in 3847.67
0.020792
10
240
1 in 49844.80
0.004815
11
500
1 in 1060032.75
0.000472
12
3000
1 in 41694621.35
0.000072
13
6000
1 in 4065225581.67
0.000001
Check out WINNERonline's casino directory to find sites using Microgaming, Cryptologic, Boss Media, and Unified Gaming software.
About the author: Michael Shackleford is the mathematician and
webmaster at The Wizard of Odds, a
gambling site focusing on cutting the house edge as much as possible on
all casino games through optimal player strategy.
Back to Top
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
StumbleUpon
