Da Vinci Diamonds Keno: How Paintings, Bonuses and Return Work

Da Vinci Diamonds Keno is a video keno variant in which, after you pick 2 to 10 numbers out of 80, three 2×2 paintings are placed on the board and free spins start when all four numbers of one painting are drawn. That bonus triggers in about 0.92% of rounds, roughly one in 109. Understanding its return requires counting catches, multipliers and the full bonus sequence. This calculation uses the rules described by Wizard of Odds, page version 3 August 2026, rather than the settings at a particular casino.

For 10 spots with table 1, our full-rule calculation gives 94.9% RTP. The pay table is a material assumption: switching to table 2 reduces that result to 90.4%, a drop of 4.5 pp. The game’s name alone therefore does not identify its return; the pay table and bonus rules must also match.

What the game is

Da Vinci Diamonds Keno is keno with additional payout mechanics: catches determine the pay-table award, while paintings can provide multipliers or trigger free spins. Looking only at the payouts for matched numbers leaves out a substantial part of the game.

A spot is a number you pick. A catch is one of those numbers appearing in the draw. A painting is a square 2×2 region containing four numbers, each represented by a panel. Paintings occupy numbers you have not picked, so catches and lit painting panels are separate counts.

The familiar sequence remains: choose numbers, wait for the draw and check the payout. The extra work comes when checking the paintings. A partially lit painting can affect the multiplier, while a fully lit painting starts the bonus. These mechanics explain why a calculation based solely on catches is lower than the full RTP.

How a round works

You choose 2–10 numbers from 1–80, three paintings are placed on unchosen numbers, and the game draws 20 balls without replacement. The basic keno rules explain number selection and catches; this variant adds a separate check of the paintings.

The round follows this sequence:

• Pick the numbers you want to play.
• Three 2×2 paintings occupy unchosen numbers. You select their regions or the game selects them at random.
• The game draws 20 numbers from 80. Without replacement means that a number cannot appear again in the same initial draw.
• Each drawn number you picked counts as a catch.
• Lit painting panels determine the multiplier and whether free spins begin.

The catch count is checked against the pay table for the number of spots played. A 10-spot pay table cannot be used to check an award for a different number of spots. Keep the selection size and the catch count separate: the former identifies the applicable table, while the latter identifies the payout within it.

Choosing particular numbers does not change their chance of appearing in a random draw. There is no number-selection or painting-placement strategy offered here: the draws are random, and this guide explains their arithmetic rather than advising how to predict them.

Paintings and multipliers

A painting with three of its four panels lit gives a 2x multiplier, and qualifying painting multipliers add together. If none applies, the multiplier is 1x.

Addition is the key rule when checking the payout. Do not multiply the individual painting multipliers together. Also distinguish a painting with three lit panels from a fully lit painting: the former supplies the stated multiplier, while the latter satisfies the bonus trigger condition.

Wizard of Odds reports these multiplier shares: 1x in 87.4% of rounds, 2x in 12.2%, 4x in 0.40%, and 6x in 0.003%. These are the source’s figures, not results from our simulation. They show that most rounds do not receive an increased multiplier.

Multiplier frequency is not the same as the chance of receiving a payout. You still need the catch count and the corresponding pay-table award. A multiplier describes how an applicable award changes; it does not replace the pay table or independently describe the game’s RTP.

Bonus and free spins

Free spins begin when all four numbers of at least one painting appear in the draw. Three lit panels do not trigger the bonus; they belong to the multiplier rule.

The award is calculated as:

Free spins = lit panels across all three paintings × fully lit paintings.

The first part counts lit panels everywhere, including panels on paintings that are not complete. The second part counts only fully lit paintings. Treating both parts as the same count would produce the wrong award.

The maximum from one trigger is 36 free spins: 12 × 3. That requires all three paintings to be fully lit. Its probability is 2.09·10⁻⁹, or approximately one in 478 million. This is the chance of the maximum initial award, not the chance of any bonus.

The exact probability of any bonus trigger is 0.9177%, rounded to 0.92%. Expressed as an average frequency, that is approximately one in 109 rounds, or one in 108.97. This frequency is not a schedule and does not make a bonus due after that many rounds.

Free spins retain the same selected numbers and stake. Each ball landing on a painting awards two extra balls. An extra ball that also lands on a painting awards two more, continuing the chain. The payout for that round of free spins is calculated only after all its balls have been drawn.

That chain is why extra balls in video keno matter for other bonus variants of video keno. Stopping at the initial draw would miss later catches and would not represent the completed round.

Free spins can also award more free spins, subject to a total limit of 600. Retrigger spins follow the same formula with the same paintings; Wizard of Odds does not specify this, and the 600 cap applies to the total spins played. The limits describe different things: 36 is the maximum from one trigger under the painting formula, whereas 600 caps the accumulated free spins.

Two pay tables: why the distinction matters

The two pay tables award different amounts for some catch counts, producing different overall returns. The rules and tables appear in Da Vinci Diamonds Keno, Wizard of Odds: its description identifies table 1 with VideoPoker.com and table 2 with Resorts World Las Vegas.

These are the listed payouts for 10 spots, not the probabilities of making those catches.

The differences are at 7 and 8 catches. The other listed awards are identical, including the payout for catching all 10 numbers. Comparing only the largest award would therefore conceal the difference in return.

Our full-rule calculation gives 94.9% for table 1 and 90.4% for table 2 on 10 spots, a 4.5 pp gap. Wizard of Odds gives 95.0% and 90.6%, respectively. Keep the attribution attached to each pair rather than combining figures from separate calculations.

For 2 spots, our calculated totals are 94.3% on table 1 and 85.4% on table 2. The effect of switching tables is therefore specific to the number of spots. A return figure describes a combination of selection size, pay table and bonus rules, not the pay table in isolation.

What our calculation shows

Our calculation combines exact catch probabilities, an exact bonus-trigger probability and simulation of the complete rules. For 10 spots on table 1, it gives 94.9% RTP; using table 2 instead gives 90.4%.

Catch probabilities use the exact hypergeometric distribution, which accounts for a draw without replacement. Those probabilities agree with the Wizard of Odds tables. The ordinary catch-based payout is checked by summing:

Pay-table return = sum across outcomes of catch probability × corresponding payout.

This answers the question of how much the listed catch awards contribute before paintings and free spins are included. The bonus-trigger probability is calculated separately for the three paintings. Simulation then follows the full sequence, including the bonus.

The full-rule check keeps the initial draw at 20 balls without repeats, excludes selected numbers from paintings, and respects the limits of 36 free spins from one trigger and 600 in total. It also follows the extra-ball chains rather than settling a bonus round before they finish.

The comparison preserves the reported results rather than treating the two calculations as identical. Our simulated figures have the stated uncertainty; their final decimal places should not be read as exact values.

For 10 spots on table 1, the simulation covered 24 million rounds. Its split is 48.6% base return plus 46.3% bonus return, totaling 94.9%. Wizard of Odds reports 48.5% base, 46.5% bonus and 95.0% total.

Teaching card: on 10 spots with table 1 the base game gives 48.6 pp of return, the bonus 46.3 pp, total 94.9%Teaching card based on our calculation over 24 million rounds. It is not a screenshot of the game.

Here, “base” means the portion of the complete rules before bonus free spins. It includes the relevant painting and multiplier effects. It is not the same calculation as a plain catch-only pay-table return, which explains the different base figures discussed below.

Where our calculator stops

Our keno odds calculator counts only the base game’s catch probabilities and pay-table awards. For 10 spots on table 1, it gives 44.9%, not the complete game’s 94.9%: paintings, multipliers and the bonus are outside its scope.

To check that catch-only calculation:

• Set “How many spots you pick” to 10.
• Enter the relevant table’s awards under “Payout per catch (your casino's table)”.
• Read “RTP (return to player)”.
• Compare the result with the catch-only return, not with the complete game’s RTP.

For 10 spots on table 2, the calculator gives 43.7%. This confirms the effect of changing the listed payouts on the catch-only calculation, but it does not check the bonus mechanics.

The boundary between the calculations matters. The calculator’s 44.9% omits paintings and multipliers; the simulation’s 48.6% base contribution includes them. Reaching the full 94.9% additionally requires free spins, extra balls and retriggers. These are different scopes, not interchangeable descriptions of the same total.

For a different bonus game, see how to check return with a bonus. The useful connection is the method of separating the payout components; that game’s bonus rules do not apply to Da Vinci Diamonds Keno.

Sensitivity: what changes the conclusion

The result changes substantially when the calculation changes the pay table or removes a bonus mechanic. The reference case below is 10 spots, table 1 and the complete rules, with multipliers assumed to work in free spins as they do in the base game.

Each row changes one condition separately. The table does not calculate the combination of all those changes, so the effects should not be added together or applied simultaneously.

The mechanisms behind the differences are distinct. Switching pay tables changes catch awards. Disabling retriggers changes how long a bonus can continue. Removing multipliers from free spins changes payouts within the bonus. All affect RTP, but they do so through different parts of the rules.

The conclusion is conditional: 94.9% applies to 10 spots on table 1 with the stated full rules. Table 2 gives 90.4%; removing retriggers gives 69.9%; removing free-spin multipliers gives 76.9%. Before using a headline percentage, check which of these conditions it assumes.

What it means in practice

RTP is an expectation, not the outcome of a round or session. On 10 spots, about 46 pp of the full return comes from a bonus that starts in only 0.92% of rounds. A large share of the average payout is therefore tied to an infrequent event.

One money example: a $10 stake on 10 spots with table 1 corresponds to an average calculated payout of about $9.49, using the rounded 94.9% full RTP. In that same example, the $20,000 award for 10 catches is associated with a probability of approximately one in 8.9 million, or 1.12·10⁻⁷.

This example assumes table 1 and the full bonus rules described here. The average uses the rounded RTP, while the large catch award is a specific pay-table outcome, not an average or a prediction. Individual payouts follow the game’s outcomes rather than clustering around the expected amount.

A short period of observation is consequently a poor way to verify the full return. A sequence without free spins does not remove their contribution to the expectation. Equally, seeing a strong bonus does not establish that comparable payouts will recur in the next sequence.

For practical interpretation, keep three questions separate: which pay table applies, which mechanics the percentage includes, and how rare the contributing events are. Together, these explain why a catch-only calculator, a full-game calculation and an actual session can show very different results.

Limits

This guide covers the Wizard of Odds rules description dated 3 August 2026, with the pay tables described in that source. It does not verify the settings of a particular casino; VideoPoker.com and Resorts World Las Vegas identify where the source associates the two tables. The repeat-trigger assumption (same formula, same paintings) is not specified by the source; without it the 10-spot table 1 return is about 69.9%.

Exact catch and bonus-trigger probabilities are distinct from the simulated full-rule returns. The uncertainty ranges accompany those simulated results, and the sensitivity section states the assumption about multipliers during free spins. Checking another version requires matching those conditions as well as the game’s name.

The calculation is not a guarantee of a payout or a profitable session. Its purpose is to make the rules, arithmetic and boundaries of the reported return clear.