How to play keno and check your ticket’s odds

To play keno, pick a few numbers from 80 (1 to 10 in the Delaware Lottery, up to 15 or 20 in some casino lounges), place your stake and wait for 20 numbers to be drawn at random; the paytable then pays by how many of your picks came up. Our calculation of the Delaware Lottery printed base table gives a long-run return of 50.00% with one spot—a picked number—to 62.44% with three spots. This applies to that base table, not keno everywhere: other casinos and lotteries use different pick limits and paytables.

Check the rules and paytable of the game in front of you before buying a ticket.

How do you play a keno ticket?

Choose your numbers, set your stake, pay for the ticket and compare your matches with the paytable after the draw.

A ticket records your chosen numbers and stake for a draw. A catch, or match, is a picked number that appears among the drawn numbers. The paytable lists the payout for each number of catches at your chosen ticket size.

1. Check the permitted number of spots. Delaware allows 1–10; Loto-Québec terminals allow 3–10; Turning Stone allows 1–15 or 20, depending on the game.
2. Mark your numbers on the playslip or screen. Quick Pick lets the system choose them randomly instead.
3. Set your stake and pay. Delaware accepts stakes of $1–$20; Turning Stone advertises play from $2. For a paper ticket at Turning Stone, mark your picks with crosses and give the playslip and stake to the keno counter or a runner who accepts tickets. Check the processed ticket before play starts.
4. Wait for the draw. The games covered here draw 20 numbers from 80. A terminal starts its draw after you confirm play; lottery and lounge games follow a schedule.
5. Count your catches and check the payout. Use the paytable for your ticket size and stake. The same number of catches can pay differently on different-sized tickets.

Training diagram of an 80-number keno board: six picked numbers, 20 drawn numbers and three matchesTraining diagram, not a casino screenshot. Six numbers picked, 20 drawn, three matched. On the Delaware base table, three catches on six spots pay $1 per $1 staked: the stake comes back and the net result is zero.

Rule sources: Delaware Lottery, What Is Keno, delottery.com; Loto-Québec, video lottery terminals how-to-play, Keno Games, loterievideo.lotoquebec.com; Turning Stone Resort Casino, Keno, turningstone.com. All viewed 17 October 2026.

How do lounge, terminal and multi-card games differ?

The basic matching game stays the same, but the ticket controls, draw timing and paytable depend on the format.

The electronic format is covered in the video keno guide. For several cards sharing one draw, see four-card keno.

Turning Stone also describes a combination ticket: the 80 numbers are divided into groups of four, and each group is paired with every other group to create 190 eight-number combinations. At a minimum of 10 cents per combination, the ticket costs $19. That is a different purchase from a single eight-spot ticket.

Sources: Turning Stone Resort Casino, Keno, turningstone.com; Wizard of Odds, Keno, wizardofodds.com, for paper and touchscreen selection. Both viewed 17 October 2026.

Does it matter which numbers you choose?

The number of spots affects payouts, but the particular numbers do not have an advantage: in a uniform draw, each number has a 20/80 = 25% chance of appearing.

The draw uses sampling without replacement, so a number cannot appear twice in the same draw. Catches follow a hypergeometric distribution. Any two sets of the same size have the same catch probabilities, whether selected by hand or through Quick Pick.

Hot/cold numbers do not predict the next draw. Separate draws are independent, so previous results do not make a number due to appear. The gambler's fallacy simulator explores that mistaken expectation.

Choose the ticket size using its paytable. More spots do not automatically mean a better chance of any payout or a higher return.

What are the odds for different ticket sizes?

Matching every pick becomes less likely as you add spots, while the chance of any payout also depends on which catch counts the paytable rewards.

The comparison uses the printed Delaware Lottery paytable, which contains all ten ticket sizes. The worked payout example below covers only its six-spot row.

Our calculation assumes a uniform draw of 20 distinct numbers from 80, a $1 stake and no KENO Bonus option. Payouts are gross: they include any returned stake. The base calculation excludes payout caps and prize sharing; the separate cap example below changes that assumption.

Any payout means a payout greater than zero, not a profit. It can simply return your stake.

Figures are rounded to the precision shown. For nine spots, the exact calculation rounds to 1 in 9.74, while Delaware prints 1:9.75; the other any-payout odds agree to two decimal places.

For a closer look at one ticket size, use the seven-spot ticket guide.

How do you read a six-spot paytable?

Find your catch count and read the corresponding gross payout: on Delaware’s six-spot ticket at a $1 stake, three catches return the stake, while four or more produce a net-profitable round.

Do not add the stake to a gross payout a second time. Each row’s contribution to RTP is its probability multiplied by its payout per unit staked.

Probabilities and contributions are rounded separately. The total comes from the unrounded calculation: 55.6276% RTP, displayed as 55.63%.

The outcomes break down as follows:

• Any payout: 16.1582%, or 16.16%.
• Exactly the stake back: 12.9820%, or 12.98%. Three catches pay $1 on a $1 stake.
• A net-profitable round: 3.1763%, or 3.18%. Four, five or six catches pay more than the stake.

The net round result is the payout minus all stakes for that round. Hit frequency alone therefore does not describe value: specify whether you mean matches, any payout or a payout exceeding the stake.

What return does the paytable offer?

Under the Delaware base-table assumptions, three spots have the highest RTP at 62.44%, and one spot has the lowest at 50.00%. Whichever way the Turning Stone stake is read, its six-spot RTP differs from Delaware’s by at least 13.12 percentage points: 68.75% assuming $0.50 per game, or 34.38% at a $1 stake, against Delaware’s 55.63%. This exceeds the 12.44-point spread across all Delaware ticket sizes.

RTP is the theoretical share of stakes returned through payouts over the long run, not a promised personal result. House edge equals 100% minus RTP; the house edge guide explains that relationship.

For six spots, the unrounded house edge is 44.3724%. Over 100 draws at $1 each, the expected loss is about $44.37. This models the stated turnover, not the outcome of one session.

The Turning Stone assumption comes from its offer of four games for $2 above the five-to-eight-spot payouts. Treating those payouts as applying to each $0.50 game is our inference, not a quoted rule. Source: Turning Stone Resort Casino, Keno, turningstone.com, viewed 17 October 2026.

The ranking of Turning Stone’s five-to-eight-spot rows does not depend on the stake assumption; only the RTP level changes. Five spots offer the highest return, at 70.06% assuming $0.50 per game. Delaware’s best remains three spots, at 62.44%. Check the applicable table and stake before comparing ticket sizes.

For historical context, Wizard of Odds reports live-keno surveys showing 65%–80% RTP in Las Vegas in 2001, equivalent to a 20%–35% house edge, and 50%–74% RTP in Laughlin in 2012. These are historical survey results, not current paytables; Delaware’s 50.00%–62.44% range sits toward the lower end of that comparison. Source: Wizard of Odds, Keno, wizardofodds.com, viewed 17 October 2026.

Delaware’s published maximum prize without KENO Bonus is $100,000 per wager. It does not affect the $1 example, but applying it at a $20 stake changes these returns:

Three spots remain the highest-RTP choice on this table. Delaware also splits the top-prize pool equally when there are more than two top-prize winners.

KENO Bonus costs the stake again, so a $1 base ticket costs $2 with the option. Its possible multipliers are 1, 3, 4, 5 and 10. It is excluded from our calculation because Delaware labels its multiplier probabilities as estimates and they do not add up to 100%, so the option’s theoretical return cannot be calculated reliably. The cap and prize-sharing rules and the multiplier table appear in Delaware’s printed paytable cited above; the Bonus price is listed on its What Is Keno page.

How do you check your own paytable in the calculator?

Enter gross payouts per unit staked, then compare RTP with the chance of any payout rather than treating them as the same measure.

1. Open the keno odds calculator.
2. Set the ticket size using “How many spots you pick”.
3. Enter each catch-count payout under “Payout per catch (your casino's table)”. Use payouts per unit staked: 1 means the stake comes back.
4. Read “RTP (return to player)” and “House edge”.
5. Compare them with “Chance to win anything” and “Average catches”. The former reports the any-payout probability defined above.

ToolsGambling keno calculator with the Delaware table entered: 6 spots, RTP 55.63% and house edge 44.37%Screenshot of the ToolsGambling calculator (17 October 2026): all ten Delaware rows entered, 6 spots selected. Observed on the screen: RTP 55.63%, house edge 44.37%, average catches 1.50; the best-spot line shows 3 spots at 62.44%, as in the table above.

The tool supports a fixed pool of 80 numbers, a draw of 20 and tickets with 1–10 spots. Bonus mechanics, payout caps, prize sharing and games with a different pool or draw size fall outside its calculation.

“Best spot on this paytable” compares all stored rows, including illustrative defaults. Replace every row used in the comparison with the corresponding payouts from your actual table; default examples do not establish the best ticket size for a real venue.

What should you check before paying?

Check the game rules, total ticket cost and your spending limit before you pay.

• Game specification: confirm the pool, draw size and permitted spots.
• Applicable paytable: check that it matches your ticket size and stake.
• Total cost: include every paid draw, card, combination and optional extra.
• Ticket accuracy: verify your numbers, stake and number of games before the draw starts.
• Budget: decide what you can afford to spend and do not increase it to recover losses.

The rules and paytable determine the ticket’s cost and mathematical return. Choosing supposedly lucky numbers does not change either.