A popular keno strategy is called chase the old man. This strategy involves playing those numbers that seem to be coming up more than others. By this theory, some numbers appear more than others, therefore playing them is a wise decision. If you believe this theory, then that, my friend is why you must take orders from your feudal liege lord. The numbers all run by chance and when you are playing internet keno, this keno strategy is not one I would ever use. Some people even foolishly play the opposite way, and play numbers that have not come up yet. Again, this is a useless keno strategy as the balls have no memory. They make no effort to even the score.
That isn’t to say there’s nothing to learn. In fact, if you can simply learn to understand your own motivations for playing the game, you’ll become a more intelligent player. First of all, lets look at the options available to us, the player, when we first attempt to employ a keno strategy. What variables do we have direct control over? Obviously we control the numbers we pick, and on top of that the number of numbers we pick, and the casinos offer ‘way’ bets to combine more than one bet on one card. Do these things have an outcome on play? Well you’d be hard pressed to prove that the outcome of a keno game has nothing to do with the numbers that come up, but you could pretty easily say that it has nothing to do with the numbers that you choose. If you can affect the numbers that come up with the numbers that you choose, then you’re more than a step ahead of me. Ok then, so what about our other variables? The number of numbers you choose. The sharp mind is going to say, hey, the odds have to change with the number of numbers I pick, right? I mean, if I pick just two numbers, isn’t there a better chance of hitting 100% of those numbers than if I had picked 10? In actuality yes, but as payouts fluctuate with the number of numbers picked, the casinos compensate for any weak mathematics. Looking at the tables provided by the wizard of odds you can get a good sense of what happens the more numbers you bet on, at a casino.
What about way or combination bets (read the keno rules page for some background)? These are simply methods for the casino to, in one way, give you more to do while you play keno, but also make you feel as though you have a little more control over things. This reasoning is spurious of course, because if combining bets actually helped your chances, chances are the casinos wouldn’t let you do it. The one positive thing that can be achieved by using combination bets is the possible lowering of bet minimums. For instance, if you have a 3 way bet going, the casino may only require a $0.50 minimum on the bet, as opposed to the standard $1. This isn’t much of an advantage however, as you are still only paid back based on what you actually wager. Basic bottom line advice? It doesn’t really matter how many numbers you choose, or if you combine or wheel your bets. Choose less numbers if you like to win a little bit, a little more often; choose many if you only really want to win once in keno, but you want it to put yourself in the lap of luxury for life. To make things a little easier on you, I picked up a table of probabilities from an article by Alan Krigman, which clearly shows the chances of hitting all the numbers, depending on how many numbers you choose.
