RALEIGH – Beginning Sunday, Oct. 29, North Carolinians can try their luck on a new draw game called Carolina Keno that offers chances to win prizes in drawings every five minutes.
“Carolina Keno is a fast-paced, exciting lottery game,” said Alice Garland, executive director of the N.C. Education Lottery. “Carolina Keno will offer a fun, new lottery experience for many North Carolinians and along the way help raise additional money for education, the good cause the lottery serves.”
The new game is played in social settings such as restaurant, bars, and stores with spaces where people gather for food and drink. Typically, people play Keno with their friends, buying tickets as they socialize and watch nearby TV monitors for the winning numbers in the drawings.
Carolina Keno is the first new draw game offered by the lottery since February 2016. Eighteen other states already have their own version of Keno, including the neighboring states of Tennessee and Georgia.
Since Carolina Keno is a social game, it will be available predominantly in social businesses, including restaurants, bars, taverns, coffee houses, pubs, ale houses, bowling alleys, and fraternal organizations. The game will begin in more than 680 locations across the state, with additional locations offering the game soon.
Carolina Keno is designed to let the players pick the prize they want to play for. Here’s how the game is played:
- For each drawing, 20 numbers out of 80 possible are selected as winning numbers.
- Players choose how many numbers, or spots, they want to try and match. The number of spots you play and match determines how much you win.
- The price is determined by the player. You can buy a single drawing for $1, $2, $3, $5, or $10.
- Prizes range from $1 to $1 million. Every additional dollar played multiplies the potential winning prize amount. For example, buying a $1 ticket for 10 spots could win you $100,000 if you match all ten spots or buying a $10 ticket for 10 spots could win you $1 million if you match 10 spots.
- Approximate overall odds of winning a prize range from 1 in 3.86 to 1 in 16.63. The approximate odds of winning $100,000 or $1 million on a 10 Spot Game are 1 in 8.91 million.
- Players must be 18 years old to play. Keno retailers are responsible for checking IDs to ensure players are 18 or older just as they do with other age-controlled products that they sell.