Bonus Ball and Multiplier Keno
The extra ball is fun. It is also funded. How these games really work, described generically and honestly.
The designs you will meet
Extra ball games
A bonus number joins the draw, and when it lands among your catches the win is multiplied or topped up. Machines in the style of the famous bonus ball games work this way, each with its own funding twist.
Random multiplier games
Before the draw, the game picks a multiplier, often between 1x and 10x or so, and applies it to whatever the draw pays. Most draws get the small end, and the big end does the advertising.
Extra wager games
The feature switches on only when you stake additional credits per card, commonly doubling the wager. The base game underneath is unchanged, so the entire feature price is visible in the bet.
Trimmed base games
The feature costs nothing extra at the button because the base paytable is leaner than the plain game beside it. The price is real either way. It is simply collected quietly instead of loudly.
Somebody pays for the ball
A prize can always be rebuilt as a bigger prize that lands less often without moving its average. Take any prize worth 100 credits. Pay 300 credits one time in three instead, and the long run average is still 100 while the swings triple. Bonus features are that trade wearing a costume, and the honest questions are the boring ones. What does the feature cost, what does the combined table return, and how does that compare to the plain game at the next seat. Some feature games come out ahead of their plain neighbors, some behind, and the label never tells you which. The reading skills are the same ones taught on our paytables page and house edge page.
About the famous branded games
The best known games in this family are branded titles, and names like Cleopatra Keno and Caveman Keno are trademarks of IGT. This site has no affiliation with IGT or any machine maker, and nothing here reproduces, estimates, or attributes any branded machine's paytable. Our standing rule across the whole site is that published tables are labeled by style only, which is exactly how this page treats the bonus ball family. The mechanics above describe the style, and any specific machine's numbers live on its own help screen.
Volatility is the product
Even when a feature game and a plain game return the same percentage, they play nothing alike. Concentrating return into rarer, larger events means longer quiet stretches, deeper mid session dips, and occasional spikes worth remembering, which is precisely what these games sell. That shape is a legitimate preference as entertainment. It is worth choosing with open eyes, because a bankroll sized for a steady game will feel small inside a spiky one, a dynamic our house edge page quantifies through hit frequency.
Reading one honestly
Treat any feature game as a paytable with decoration. Find the help screen, note what the feature costs in extra credits or trimmed base prizes, and rebuild the value with our payout calculator if the machine does not publish its return. For a baseline feel, run a plain table free, the video style table in our simulator is one click, and ten thousand draws of the base game make the feature's promises much easier to weigh. The wider landscape of formats, including the multi card games these features often ride on, is mapped on types of keno and video keno.
Frequently asked questions
What is bonus ball keno?
A family of keno games that layer an extra drawn element onto the standard 20 of 80 draw, either a bonus ball that boosts wins it lands in or a random multiplier applied to the draw. The feature is funded by extra credits per card or by a leaner base paytable, and the base catch odds never change.
Do multipliers make keno pay back more?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The feature is paid for out of the wager one way or another, and the combined return can land above or below the plain game beside it. Only the specific paytable answers the question, which is why this site publishes style tables with exact returns instead of promises.
Is this page about Cleopatra Keno or Caveman Keno?
No. Those names are trademarks of IGT, this site has no affiliation with any machine maker, and no paytable here is attributed to any branded game. This page covers extra ball and multiplier mechanics generically, and every table we publish is labeled by style only.
Does the bonus ball change my odds of catching numbers?
The catch odds are untouched. Twenty numbers still come from eighty, and every pick set of the same size stays equally likely. What changes is the payout arithmetic layered on top, the size of the boosted wins, how often they land, and what the ride feels like.
How do I compare a bonus ball game to a plain one?
Turn both into the same two numbers, return and pace. Where a machine publishes its return, use it. Where it does not, the paytable plus our payout calculator can rebuild the picture. Our simulator runs plain style tables free, which makes a fair baseline for judging any feature.