Life is Funny

If any of you are avid keno players, you may stare at the result screen and see patterns emerging. The number 56 may come up 3 draws in a row. Sounds like a good bet to play 56 over the next 5 draws, because the chance of the number coming up again is high.

WRONG.

Casinos, lottery corporations, and the like, have spent expensive money from people like www.gtech.com to ensure that their number picking server is choosing unbiased and unpredictable numbers through true RNG (Random Number Generation).

Yes, patterns will materialize with KENO. But guess what? They are random patterns. To the human eye and brain, we’ll associate random patterns with logical patterns. We’ll figure that the computer must be locked into some mode that is generating patterns and if we could only figure out the pattern and the frequency, we’ll dominate Keno.

Not true. Well, actually a correction. It was TRUE in the earlier days of Keno. You can read news articles from many years back, where random number generation was based on the time cycles of the computer when it was switched on, and everytime the computer was switched off and turned back on again, the same random number sequences would produce predictive random numbers.

But that was identified, and corrected, and is no longer present in today’s society.

Similarily, cooked potato chips may have a burned or bruised marking on them. If you sift through 5,000 bags of chips and examine each one, you may eventually find one that has the marking of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or even a NIKE symbol.

Does this mean that you’ve found something sacred? No, it just means that if you look at randomness often enough, eventually random patterns will emerge, and as humans we can identify them. But all you are really doing is identifying something totally random that happened to produce a pattern.

So when you are losing your shirt over the long term playing KENO, keep in mind you are competing with a random machine. Randomly, you WILL win. However, randomly you WILL lose too. Keno is suppose to be an entertaining game, for FUN, with the chance of winning a random prize.

If you feel that if you play the game enough, and try to beat the system — well the long term odds will get you to lose money, and the keno operators will eventually profit from your failed investments.

I still play KENO, but with a very different attitude now. I’ll throw a couple bucks at the system, but no longer will I try and capture patterns. I’ve analyzed it enough and done research. I think its funny when I sit in a public gambling establishment and hear people freak out and exclaim “wow! Look! See!! 56 came up again! Make sure you put that number on the ticket.”

In true random number theory, 56 can come up 30 times in a row. But then again, it can stop coming up for the next 30 times. There is no rhyme, reason, or pattern to why KENO numbers come up.

If you’d like to read a little more about the history of KENO, I recommend this website

Sorry if I’ve burst your bubble where you had hoped to one day dominate Keno patterns. It isn’t possible. But don’t you feel better being well informed?