Keno Glossary
Every term you will meet at a lounge counter, on a lottery monitor, or in a paytable, defined in plain language.
The basics
Spot
One number you mark on a keno ticket. Playing six numbers is playing a 6-spot. Most games allow 1 to 10 spots, some up to 15 or 20.
Catch
A picked number that appears in the draw. Catch 6 of 8 means six of your eight spots were drawn. Payouts are listed by catches.
Draw
One round of keno, in which 20 numbers are selected from the 80 on the board.
Race
Another name for a single draw, left over from the horse racing keno era. Multi-race keno is one ticket entered into several consecutive draws.
Ticket
The marked card holding your picks and wager. A straight ticket is one bet; way and combination tickets hold several.
Board
The 80 numbers keno is played on, traditionally printed in eight rows of ten.
Quick pick
Letting the machine choose your numbers randomly. Statistically identical to any hand-picked set of the same size.
Wager
The amount bet per ticket per draw. Paytables list prizes as multiples of it.
Tickets and ways
Straight ticket
The simple one, a single group of numbers playing as one bet.
Way ticket
One ticket carrying several bets at once. Numbers are circled into groups, and each qualifying combination of groups is a separate way.
Way
A single self-contained bet inside a way ticket. Written as ways over spots, so 6/3 means six 3-spot ways.
Group
A circled cluster of numbers on a way ticket. Groups combine to form ways.
King
A group of exactly one number. Kings pair with every other group, which multiplies the ways on a ticket quickly.
Conditioning
Choosing which spot sizes on a way ticket you actually pay for, like playing only the 6-spot ways inside a 3-3-3 ticket.
Combination ticket
A ticket mixing different group sizes so ways of several spot sizes are played together.
Split ticket
Two or more completely separate straight bets sharing one physical ticket, with no numbers in common.
Top and bottom
A classic exotic ticket betting on how many drawn numbers land in the top half of the board versus the bottom half.
Edge ticket
A pattern ticket using the 32 numbers around the rim of the printed board. The layout is cosmetic, so edge numbers hit exactly as often as any others.
Multi-race card
One set of picks entered into several consecutive draws, common in lounges and lottery keno.
Money and math
Paytable
The chart mapping catches to prizes for each spot count. Two games with identical rules can pay very differently, which is why the paytable is the whole game.
Multiplier
The prize expressed as a multiple of the wager. A 25x line pays 25 on a 1 unit bet.
RTP
Return to player, the percentage of all wagers a paytable gives back over the long run. A 92% RTP table keeps 8% as its edge.
House edge
100% minus RTP, the share of total wagers the game keeps on average. Keno edges vary more than almost any other game, from under 10% to over 30%.
Expected value
The long-run average result of a bet, computed by weighting every outcome by its exact probability. Our calculators publish these numbers precisely.
Variance
How swingy results are around the average. Top-heavy paytables with big jackpots and rare hits are high variance; flat tables that pay small catches often are low variance.
Hit frequency
How often a ticket pays anything at all. A 10-spot pays rarely but big; a 2-spot pays often but small.
Consolation pay
A small prize for catching very few numbers on a big ticket, most famously the 10-spot that pays when you catch nothing at all.
Aggregate limit
A cap on total prizes a venue pays per draw. When wins exceed it, winners split the capped amount proportionally.
Progressive jackpot
A top prize that grows with play until someone hits it. After a hit it resets to its base amount.
Bankroll
The money set aside for play. Honest keno pages talk about bankroll in terms of entertainment budget, because no ticket shape changes the long-run math.
Where keno is played
Live keno
The lounge game. Draws run every few minutes, tickets are written by hand or at a counter, and results post to screens around the venue.
Keno lounge
The dedicated room or corner where live keno runs, with boards, writers, and often runners.
Keno runner
A staff member who carries tickets and winnings between players and the keno counter so nobody has to leave their seat.
Keno writer
The counter employee who registers tickets and pays winners.
Video keno
The machine version. Draws resolve in seconds at your own pace, which multiplies how much money moves per hour compared with lounge play.
Lottery keno
State lottery drawings every few minutes on monitors in bars and shops, with fixed statewide paytables and often an optional multiplier add-on.
Four card keno
A video keno variant playing up to four tickets simultaneously against the same draw. Twenty card keno extends the idea to twenty.
Ball hopper
The physical mixing machine older lounges used, blowing numbered balls into tubes. Most modern draws are RNG based instead.
RNG
Random number generator, the certified software that selects draws in modern keno. Each draw is independent of every draw before it.
Myths with names
Hot number
A number that has appeared often lately. In a fair game this is a description of the past, not a prediction. Watch hot lists rebuild from scratch in our live demonstration.
Cold number
A number that has not appeared lately. It is exactly as likely as any other number in the next draw.
Due number
The gambler's fallacy wearing a keno hat. No number is ever owed an appearance, because every draw resets the odds completely.
Chasing
Raising bets to recover losses. The math never rewards it, and it is the pattern most worth catching in yourself early.