Keno Appendix 13 — Analysis of the Fremont "Super Eight"

Last update: Dec. 14 ,2009

The "Super Eight" is a keno game I noticed at the Fremont casino in downtown Las Vegas on December 11, 2009. It works like a "way ticket," with four groups of two. However, it has bigger payoffs than if you did it based on the regular pick-2 pays. The cost of each ticket is $15.

To be specific, the player picks four sets of two numbers. Each pair of two numbers should be next to each other on the card, and circled. The player will be paid according to how many in each of the four pairs hit. For example, if one pair had two catches, two pairs had one catch, and one pair had zero catches, it would be represented as 2-1-1-0, which pays $28.

The following table shows all the possible outcomes.

Fremont "Super Eight"
Event	Pays	Probability	Return
0-0-0-0	$0	0.098434	0
1-0-0-0	$0	0.266939	0
1-1-0-0	$1	0.271464	0.271464
1-1-1-0	$4	0.122696	0.490782
1-1-1-1	$10	0.020796	0.207958
2-0-0-0	$15	0.042265	0.633981
2-1-0-0	$20	0.085964	1.719271
2-1-1-0	$28	0.058280	1.631850
2-1-1-1	$48	0.013171	0.632194
2-2-0-0	$148	0.006805	1.007206
2-2-1-0	$248	0.009228	2.288476
2-2-1-1	$415	0.003128	1.298138
2-2-2-0	$1947	0.000487	0.948226
2-2-2-1	$3605	0.000330	1.190307
2-2-2-2	$31640	0.000013	0.413526
Total		1	12.733378

The lower right cell shows a return of $12.74. For a $15 bet, that makes the return $12.74/$15 = 84.89%. As far as I know, that is the highest return for a non-progressive keno game in Las Vegas.

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