Keno And Keno Rules

Keno is a game that is similar to Lotto.

Although the word "keno" has French or Latin roots [Fr. quine five winning numbers],
it was first introduced in China many years ago. It is said that the game originated in ancient China in the Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 B.C. It is even believed that its widespread popularity helped raise funds to build the Great Wall. Finally, it was the Chinese immigrants who came to work in the mines and on the railroad that brought the game to America in the 19th century.

It is a very popular game and is in fact, very easy to play. The fun part is that it is an exciting pastime and most importantly, it offers the possibility of winning large payouts on relatively small wagers.

Now what exactly is this modern version of Keno?

The modern game of keno uses 80 numbered ping-pong balls and every game, the house draws 20 balls at random and displays their numbers on these screens [ called keno boards or Keno monitors ] located throughout the casino.

As Keno is generally played in casinos and there are many television screens placed all around the casino halls to keep players informed.

The object of the game is for the player to guess some of the numbers that the house will draw. The player makes his/ her guesses by marking a Keno ticket, a piece of paper with the numbers 1 through to 80 printed on it. Keno tickets are located at tables throughout the casino but are most readily found in the casino's Keno lounge. The Keno lounge is a room or area with chairs to sit and write with crayons provided for marking the ticket.

You can mark a ticket, anywhere from 1 to 15 (more in some places) numbers. The more numbers you mark the more you have to “catch” to win. In dollar terms, the payoffs for the house percentage is pretty much the same regardless of how many numbers you mark.

But, one of the important factors is that before you go marking a ticket, you must need to decide how much money you intend to gamble on the ticket.

Normally, you are likely to find several copies of the house's Keno brochure, which tells you what the standard bets and payouts. Generally, at any point in time, all casinos tend to have similar betting / payoff scales, but there are times, when there are various "house specials" available.

Now, simply mark a blank Keno ticket with the numbers that you want and present it to the Keno desk with your wager and the clerk will give you a duplicate ticket.

Within minutes, 20 numbered Keno balls will be drawn at random from a barrel containing 80 numbered balls, and if enough of your selected numbers are drawn and the results would be displayed on the screens.

While in some casinos, the minimum bets can be 5 cents, some of them only accept bets of $1 or more. The house's Keno brochures give you information about payoffs and various tickets you can play.

The money you win is dependent upon the type of ticket you play with and the number of 'spots' you catch. There are instances where you could win as much as $50,000 on a $1 wager in some casinos.

There is also the video version of Keno, where there are slots, with coin operated machines and it plays using the same principle with similar rules of the regular Keno, but you get the results much faster. Although, video keno offers the same odds as regular keno, the payoff scale may vary from the casino norm.

A sample game

For example, let's say you decide to play a $1 6-spot. Now what would be the basic rules for it?

You would first find or pick a blank keno ticket, get yourself a crayon and cross out your 6 choices, using a plain X. On the right side of the ticket write "$1" and you would write 6 beneath the “$1” so as to indicate that you are playing a 6-spot. Although this may be not necessary, it is used for cross-checking by the dealer, as well as being important when playing combination tickets.

After having marked your ticket, you then bring it to a dealer [who incidentally is also called a “writer’)] and who is generally situated at the front of the keno lounge. It would look more like a bank with teller windows and a stand in line

Now hand over your ticket and the money to the dealer. The “writer” would make a computer copy of your ticket, and after retaining the original, would return the copy. It is your duty to verify the copy with the original, prior to leaving the dealer window. This is because, just in case of a huge win, the house would have to verify that you did mark those numbers on the original ticket that you had given the “writer”. This also saves as an anti counterfeiting measure as they index and save the original tickets and would search through them if you made a big win.

Once you obtain your tickets, you would have to wait for the rest of the players to buy theirs, until the house declares the game as “closed”. After which, all the original tickets are collected and located in front of a video camera as a security measure. Then, the balls are mixed in the hopper and one of the dealers opens the portals chose the balls. One after another, the dealer calls out the numbers and flicks the switch that makes the number to flash on the keno board.

After the last, i.e., the 20th number is chosen, the dealers return to their stations and the few winners rush in to cash in, while the rest of the pack plan their strategy for the next game.

The Proxy Father

The Smiths had no children and decided to use a proxy father to start their family.

On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife and said, 'I'm off. The man should be here soon.'

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer rang the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. 'Good morning, madam. You don't know me but I've come to....'

'Oh, no need to explain. I've been expecting you,' Mrs. Smith cut in.

'Really ?' the photographer asked. 'Well, good! I've made a specialty of babies.'

'That's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat. Just where do we start?' asked Mrs. Smith, blushing.

'Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch and perhaps a couple on the bed. Sometimes the living room floor is fun too; you can really spread out.'

'Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work for Harry and me.'

'Well, madam, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results.'

'I hope we can get this over with quickly,' gasped Mrs. Smith.

'Madam, in my line of work, a man must take his time. I'd love to be in and out in five minutes, but you'd be disappointed with that, I'm sure.'

'Don't I know!' Mrs. Smith exclaimed. The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. 'This was done on the top of a bus in downtown London.'

'Oh my god!!', Mrs. Smith exclaimed, tugging at her handkerchief.

'And these twins turned out exceptionally well when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.' The photographer handed Mrs. Smith the picture.

'She was difficult ?' asked Mrs. Smith.

'Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to Hyde Park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep, pushing to get a good look.'

'Four and five deep?' asked Mrs. Smith, eyes widened in amazement.

'Yes,' the photographer said.

'And for more than three hours too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling. I could hardly concentrate. Then darkness approached and I began to rush my shots.'

Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, 'I just packed it all in.' Mrs. Smith leaned forward.

'You mean they actually chewed on your, eh......equipment ?'

'That's right. Well madam, if you're ready, I'll set up my tripod so that we can get to work.'

'Tripod??', Mrs. Smith looked extremely worried now.

'Oh yes, I have to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big for me to hold while I'm getting ready for action.

Madam ? Madam?..... Good Lord, she's fainted!'

More regulation will create more panic

The capitalist fat cat has long held a treasured place in popular demonology. Russians used to deride casino capitalism before showing us how to do it really well - by playing with the house's money. British trade union leaders castigated the City of London even as it created jobs at many times the pace at which their own mulish Luddism destroyed them.

Even for Americans - perhaps especially for Americans - Wall Street has been the target of popular revulsion and caricature almost since the first banks opened in Lower Manhattan. From William Jennings Bryan's philippics against the “idle holders of idle capital” in 1896 to Michael Douglas' portrayal of Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko almost a century later, the susceptibility of the American public consciousness to the perceived cupidity and selfishness of Wall Street is every bit as acute as that of any European.

When crises unfold and the idlers and greed merchants get their comeuppance, the instant reaction is a mix of anger and Schadenfreude. The public experiences a sort of Kübler-Ross style progression through the various stages of socialist grievance.

The inner Marxist rather enjoys the spectacle of rich bankers becoming victims of their own unsustainable excess, proof of the inevitable internal contradictions of the market process. Picture editors never tire of those photographs of some trader holding his head in his hands as the numbers on the screen behind him bleed red.

Then the inner Stalinist takes over and rages at the injustice of it all. How dare these Masters of the Universe with their Porsches and their incomprehensible gobbledygook bring us to our knees? Annihilate the options traders!

Finally, we get to the inner Leninist, surveying the economic wreckage and calmly insisting that Something Must be Done.

That is roughly where we are now in the Great Panic of 2008.

There is a compelling narrative that spans the transatlantic political space - all the way from Barack Obama through John McCain to the Labour Left and, for all I know, the British Conservatives too.

We got into this mess, it says, because we unleashed the forces of free-market capitalism. This is what you get when you let the animal spirits loose. We bought too willingly into all that 1980s ideology of deregulation and the primacy of markets. Government bowed out of the business of supervising and constraining the financial system. We need to realise the destructive folly of free markets and put the Government back in control. It's a convenient and compelling narrative but is deeply flawed both in its historical account and its prescription.

First, the mess we're in cannot simply be ascribed to an insufficiency of government intervention. It's true that some better regulation would have helped but in important respects there has been way too much government intervention.

Take the US mortgage market at the heart of the present crisis. One of the largest sources of the problem is the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant US mortgage companies, government-sponsored enterprises that hold or guarantee almost half of America's $11 trillion mortgage market. They facilitated much of the explosion of the mortgage-backed securities market in the US and they did so because investors always believed that these oddly public-private hybrids carried an implicit government guarantee. (They were right.)

Critics gave warning repeatedly that if they were not scaled back they would threaten the stability of the whole financial system. (They were right again.)

The idea that these two collapsing behemoths somehow represent a failure of the market is about as plausible as saying that the collapsing boxer falling to his knees somehow represents a failure of the canvas.

Nor is it the case, as capitalism's critics maintain, that the regulatory structure has been dismantled. On the contrary, the US system of financial regulation has been built up over the years into a staggering skyscraper of rules and institutions that induce a sort of governing paralysis.

The regulatory framework is not too small. It is a mess, multiplicated in many areas among different state and federal agencies, and completely lacking in others. It is developed on a base that was created in the 1930s to deal with a wholly different financial environment. Most of those still extant rules that deal, for example with commercial banks, are redundant, while others that should be in place to deal, for example, with investment banks, are not there.

Or take the UK model - please, take the UK model. Tripartite regulation between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority was a work of genius - until someone rediscovered the old truth that when you have three people in charge of something no one is really in charge. Again this is not lack of regulation. It is the wrong sort of regulation, misdirected, incoherent and in some respects, excessive.

Or consider another example in which tight regulation is actually hampering economic recovery. Under international financial rules, banks are required to maintain a core capital base as a proportion of their total balance sheet. But in a financial catastrophe, as capital dwindles and assets become riskier, those rules require banks to cut their lending and investments, driving deeper into the vicious circle

The need is not for more regulation but for more relevant regulation, a more intelligent and targeted role for government that acknowledges the essential wisdom of markets but acts to protect the weakest from their excesses.

That might certainly mean a more active role for supervisors in examining bank balance sheets. But it is more likely to require not aggressive government intervention, but simply the insistence on better provision of information to avoid the chaos created in the past year because investors didn't have a clue about the quality of many of the assets that they held. And in some respects it might even require less public involvement in, or restraint of, the economy: for example, the dismantling of the US mortgage giants and perhaps less onerous restrictions on bank lending when the economy is contracting.

We certainly don't need a system based on the wholly implausible proposition that, in the end, government knows better than people. We should resist at all costs the historically challenged claim that politicians, or the officials they appoint, can possibly know better than free, liquid, well-informed markets in which, every day, hundreds of millions of people put their own money on the line to choose their own future.

Does London Have the Best Indian Food ?

Better quality meat, fish and vegetables could very well put London ahead of any Indian city when it comes to high end Indian food. World renowned London-based Michelin star Indian chef, Atul Kochhar and the owner of the Benares Restaurant, a high-end Indian restaurant in the exclusive Mayfair area of central London said India needed to reform and reorganise its farming industry, so consumers and caterers had reliable access to fresh produce.

Watch out - be warned! Chefs in India could lose their cutting edge in preparing top quality Indian food to chefs in London.

Atul Kochhar is one of the few Michelin star Indian chefs. He warns that if India's farming industry is not reorganised - London will become the center of Indian cuisine in terms of quality.

It's not because of lack of good skill, or lack of good spices. It's purely because of lack of excellent ingredients. India doesn't have excellent ingredients in terms of fish, meat or vegetables, he says. Back in 2001 Kochhar became the first Indian chef to be awarded the highly coveted Michelin star. Kochhar is looking to return to India and open up restaurants. His biggest worry however is getting a regular supply fresh food.

The lamb farming has to be niche. The vegetable farming has to be amazingly good. All those things are there, but there is no organized effort in India he says

It wont be surprising that more Indian chefs will be awarded Michelin stars in the near future as the reputation of the Indian chefs in the city are growing.

There are more people conducting business with Indians. They are trying to understand the culture and cuisine better now and hence the recognition.

Kochhar says the corner curry house which churns unique English scorchers such as 'chicken tikka masala', or 'balti chicken' - are on the decline. It in fact, was never an authentic cuisine. I call that British Indian food - because that's how brutish people liked it. That's why they were cooking it and thats why it went on for so long. The curry house will always be part of the British landscape

Incredibly there are 1000 plus new restaurants that open every year in Britain, more than any other kind of business, unfortunately around 850 to 900 close within a year. It’s a dream that every couple has entertained. Why? Because secretly they all think that it’s so simple and that they could do it.

They think that as they know the mindset and what people like to eat, what they only wanted is the money and the opportunity.

'Shank town' brings in the cleaners to drive crime off the streets

A neighbourhood nicknamed "shank town" after a spate of stabbings is to adopt New York's approach to fighting crime.

Enfield council is using the "broken windows" theory in Edmonton in the hope it will halt killings, robberies and anti-social behaviour.

Scores of street cleaners, jet washers and environmental crime officers are carrying out a deep clean and fining litterers this week as part of the drive to make the area safer.

The thinking behind their strategy is that a problem ignored, even one as apparently minor as a broken window, sends out a signal that disorder is tolerated - encouraging more serious crime and vandalism.

And they say the US Exported More !

WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit rose to the highest level in three months, with record oil prices and a flood of toys and other imports from China swamping a solid gain in American exports.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the deficit for October increased to $57.8 billion, the highest level since July and 1.2 percent above the September imbalance.

The widening deficit was slightly worse than expected and occurred even though U.S. exports of goods and services rose for an eighth consecutive month, climbing 0.9 percent to an all-time high of $141.7 billion. This gain was offset by a 1 percent rise in imports to $199.5 billion, also a record, as a surge in global oil prices sent America’s oil bill soaring.

The deficit with China jumped 9.1 percent to $25.9 billion, a record for a single month.

The rise reflected record imports from China, led by large gains in shipments of toys and games and televisions as retailers stocked their shelves for Christmas. The demand for Chinese imports is still surging despite a string of high-profile recalls of Chinese products from toys with lead paint to defective tires and tainted toothpaste.

So far this year, the trade imbalance with China is running at an annual rate of $256 billion, putting it on track to surpass last year’s $233 billion deficit, which had been the highest deficit ever recorded with a single country.

Those record deficits have triggered a backlash in Congress, with dozens of bills introduced seeking to penalize China for what critics see as unfair trade practices contributing to the loss of 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other members of President Bush’s Cabinet were meeting with their counterparts in China this week for the third round of talks aimed at defusing trade tensions. While minor agreements were expected, there was likely to be no breakthrough on the biggest point of contention, China’s undervalued currency. The currency disparity makes Chinese products cheaper in America and U.S. goods more expensive in China.

Some of the legislation in Congress seeks to impose penalty tariffs on Chinese products unless China allows its currency to rise in value against the dollar at a faster rate. But Vice Premier Wu Yi, the leader of the Chinese delegation, delivered a blunt threat of Chinese retaliation should the United States impose economic penalties on China.

“I need to be quite candid about this: If these bills are adopted, they will severely undermine U.S. business ties with China,” Wu said at the opening of the talks with Paulson on Wednesday.

The gain in exports was led by increased shipments of civilian aircraft, industrial equipment and telecommunications products. U.S. manufacturers have been benefiting from a fall in the value of the dollar against many other currencies including the European euro. The weaker dollar makes U.S. goods cheaper on overseas markets while making foreign products more expensive for U.S. consumers.

So far this year, the U.S. trade deficit is running at an annual rate of $704 billion, down by 7.1 percent from last year’s $758.5 billion, putting the country on track to see the first narrowing of the deficit after five consecutive years of record imbalances.

The import gain was led by an 8.3 percent jump in the foreign oil bill with petroleum imports setting an all-time high of $29.6 billion in October. The average price of a barrel of imported crude also set a record at $72.49 per barrel. The oil bill is expected to rise even more in coming months, reflecting the fact that prices jumped to near $100 per barrel at their peak this fall.