Requesting a card or a hit on 17 or above will do two things: it will mark you as a rank amateur and will make other players abandon your table. There are only four cards to improve your hand with a 17, three with an 18, 2 with a 19 and one with a 20. The odds are stacked against you in every case. With 17 as the player's key point, 6 is the corresponding cutoff card for thedealer's exposed card in determining how you play it, with the deuce or 2 beingthe exception to the rule (refer to "The Terror of the Twos") It is importantto remember: everything is relative to the one card the dealer is showing. Ifthe dealer's exposed card is 3-6, the player has a better chance of winning thanif the dealer is showing a 2, 9, 10 (or face card) or ace. Seven and eight fallin the middle.Generally accepted blackjack theory notes that 18.3 represents the calculatedaverage hand needed to win. In other words, a hand with less than a 19 total(you can't get fractions in blackjack), is potentially a losing hand. If thedealer is showing a 7, 8, 9, or 10-value card, you will need to hit if you haveless than a 17.With a total of 17, you are stuck-you can't take a hit, but your chances aren'tgood. The math of the game says you can't take a card to improve your hand, butthe best you can do is hope the dealer has a 5-10 if he/she is showing a seven.With a 10, you tie, or "push." You don't win, but you don't lose. 5-9 makes thedealer hit once more. If the dealer has an 8, 9, or 10-value card exposed, youhave to hope that there is a 4, 5,6, or 7 in the hole. That will make the dealerneed to take a third card as well and this might put his/her hand over the totalof 21, with a busted hand. As there are more 10-value cards than any other, thechances here are not as bad.When you receive a hard 17, 18, 19, or 20, there is nothing to do except sitback and hope that the dealer's hand isn't as good as yours. You merely indicateto the dealer that you don't want a card and want to stand. Obviously, with a21 or blackjack, there's no need to try to improve your position.

Although the casinos have always had the home court advantage, that hasn’t stopped the near-do-wells from attempting to cheat the house. In the past, panels of one-way glass were installed in the ceilings over the casino floor. Surveillance people, often referred to as, “the eye in the sky,” would tread back and forth on narrow catwalks while looking down at the games. With binoculars in hand, they monitored both the players and the dealers for any signs of cheating. They maneuvered through spider webs and around posts and rafters in the dark. Today's modern casinos are outfitted with hundreds of cameras that can rotate, pivot and zoom in on a pinhead. These cameras are housed in those half-spherical bubbles that you see, mounted from the ceiling. They send video signals that are fed into dozens of monitors with videotapes rolling. Not all of the cameras’ signals can be shown on a monitor at all times. Just because the camera is on doesn’t mean that someone is watching it. The video can later be reviewed, but the cheat or thief may be long gone. The surveillance crew must switch back and forth between cameras, focusing more on the busy-betting areas and the cashiers’ cages. If the pit is suspicious of a cheat or if a high roller steps into the game, the boss will call up to surveillance to make sure they are watching the action at that table. Eventually, the whole system will be computerized. A network of several hundred tiny digital cameras will be mounted throughout the casino. As these cameras sense movement, they will begin processing a digital signal to a computer. Surveillance software will interpret any actions it senses and the most questionable of those will appear on one of several main monitors where a small surveillance crew will be stationed. Because the footage is digital and fully indexed, it can be immediately accessed and cross-referenced with other footage taken, even if it happened six months earlier. There would be no archived tapes to search through, no hours and hours of rewinding and playing of videotapes. Everything will be stored in one central database.

• Pair of Jacks or Better - Pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces. Achieveing this will return whatever you have bet.
• Two Pairs - A hand that contains two pairs such as two 3's and two 7's. Achieving this pays double your bet.
• Three Of A Kind - Three cards that are the same numberwise. Achieving this pays 3X your bet.
• Straight - All 5 cards consecutive but not in the same suit. For example, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Achieving this pays 3X your bet.
• Flush - Any 5 cards of the same suit, the numbers do not matter. Achieving this pays 5 to 6X your bet.
• Full House - Two cards of the same value and three cards of the same value such as 7, 7, Queen, Queen, Queen. Achieving this pays 6-9X your bet.
• Four Of A Kind - Four cards of the same numerical value such as four 10's. Achieving this pays 25X your bet.
• Straight Flush - Five cards of the same suit in numerical order such as 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of hearts. Achieving this pays 50X your bet.
• Royal Flush - Five cards of the same suit, MUST be 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace. Achieving this pays 250X your bet if you bet 1 to 4 coins and 4000X your bet if you bet 5 coins.

Leung's version of the game differed slightly from the one we know and enjoy nowadays. Instead of using the numbers 1 through 80 on the ticket, each field was represented with a character, all of which were taken from the famous poem 'The Thousand Character Classic'. Many years ago, the poem was used as a means of teaching children reading and writing skills. The fact that not one of the thousand characters was mentioned more than once was recognized as a great achievement. The characters were organized in a way that rhymed and made the poem easier to remember but being able to recite it on your own was a skill in itself. The poem was so popular throughout China that some people used it as a way of counting from one to a thousand. So, having used the first 80 characters from the poem, Leung did in fact use one through eighty as they are represented today. The history of keno in North America started with the Chinese immigrants who worked on the railroads. As part of their customs and individuality, they brought the game over to keep themselves entertained and to carry on some of their Chinese traditions. At first, the game was illegal because of the anti-gambling laws; still, it was very popular among the Chinese immigrants, where it was known as Chinese lottery. When the country legalized most types of gambling in 1931 though still not lotteries, the name was simply changed to 'horse race keno', suggesting that the numbers were horses and you were betting on the one that would come in. The game's association with horse racing earned it the name 'racing game', which is still largely used among keno operators today. A few years later, the American government decided to tax off-track betting, so the name was changed once again to offer a better profit. And that's how the game got its name - Keno.