Online Keno Strategy

Author: Sylvia Garcia

Before we begin let me just say that Keno generally offers the worst odds in any casino, and no winning keno system exists. Basically, the only way to win at Keno is to get lucky.

Still, online Keno odds vary greatly from site to site and the rollover requirements for clearing bonuses can vary as well. That being said we can, at a minimum, formulate a Keno strategy that can minimize losses by reducing the house advantage.

For the purpose of this article, I will compare the odds on Keno games, as well as the bonus being offered by the sponsoring casino. Let’s look at Go Casino because they offer a 100% up to $1000 bonus available to players on their first 20 deposits. This adds up to a whopping $20,000 in bonus cash and certainly increases the odds.

If you look at the results below, you will see that the best option is to select seven numbers for each bet.

1 Number Selected = 25% House Edge
2 Numbers Selected = 7.96% Hose Edge
3 Numbers Selected = 6.81% Hose Edge
4 Numbers Selected = 6.25% Hose Edge
5 Numbers Selected = 6.13% Hose Edge
6 Numbers Selected = 6.21% Hose Edge
7 Numbers Selected = 5.85% Hose Edge
8 Numbers Selected = 7.14% Hose Edge

Seven-number Keno has odds of 5.85%, however the variance is still high with the probability of getting 7 of 7 being just .002% or 1 in 50,000. So what did we learn? If you’re going to take advantage of all 20 bonuses for the max or play lots of Keno then this makes sense. Otherwise, you may want to pass up some of the edge and go with the 4 or 5 number Keno games. So how does the value of the Go Casino bonus factor in?

Go Casino requires a 10 time rollover on both the bonus and the deposit amount. So if you deposit $1000 and start playing with $2000, you’ll need to play $20,000 in wagers on Keno in order for the bonus to clear. The expectation is that you’ll lose 5.85% of the $20,000 or $1,170. What this means is that for every $1000 of the Go Casino bonus we clear playing Keno, even with the best odds we can expect to wind up $130 in the hole. Yet these odds are not horrible. Gamblers know all casino games have a negative expectation so if you can get $20,000 worth of action with only a $130 expected loss, that is only 0.65%. If you look at it that way you’re playing the normally high house advantage Keno games with the same sort of odds of an optimal craps strategy offer and that is certainly an optimal strategy.