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-
- K E N O
-
- by Paul Breesawitz with Modifications by Robert Markland
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- Text by Fender Tucker
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-
- Knees Calhoon once wrote a song that had the lyrics:
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- "Mama left us as we passed through Reno,
- For a man who was winnin at Keno."
-
- Apparently, Knees wasn't told that it's best to write about what you know,
- because he obviously doesn't know much about Keno. It's not a game you're
- "winnin" at -- it's more a game that you've "won" at, like the lottery.
- Back when Knees wrote the song (1972) the only way to legally play Keno was
- in Nevada. You bought a Keno card, filled in your picks, gave it back to
- the cashier who gave you a copy, then you sat around drinking until they
- called the 20 winning numbers. Since they only called about a dozen or so
- games a day, there probably weren't too many people who sat around all day
- "winnin" at Keno.
-
- But now that they have these nifty Video Keno games where you can play
- at your own pace, I guess old Knees' song may be due for a revival. Too
- bad the rest of it is pretty sappy.
-
- Paul Breesawitz's KENO program is designed to be fast. He had a few
- inefficient routines in it so I sent it to Bob Markland who tidied it up
- and added his very useful RANDOMIZER routine. Once you pick your numbers
- and set your wager you can play a game in about 15 seconds by just pressing
- RETURN (or the FIREBUTTON of a joystick in Port #2) twice. This allows you
- to play the same bet and numbers quickly. Of course you can change your
- bet or numbers at any time. At the casinos they want you to hurry up and
- lose, while on LOADSTAR 128 we want you to hurry up and have fun.
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- The game screen gives you your five options. Note that the START
- option doesn't have a highlighted S until you set your wager and pick your
- numbers. You MUST do those first. You may wager up to $100 of your
- starting $10000 bankroll on any bet. You may pick from 1 to 10 numbers out
- of the 80 on the screen. The selected ones will turn grey. Then when you
- press S (or RETURN or FIRE) the computer picks 20 numbers at random. If
- enough numbers match the ones you picked, you win according to the
- MATCH/WIN chart at the right.
-
- That's about all there is to this classic gambling game. You have a
- choice of how many numbers you want to play so you should study the payoffs
- to see if you can find one that gives you the best odds. The payoffs that
- Paul uses are standard Vegas or Atlantic City payoffs, but now that
- gambling is opening up to the other states, other payoffs may be in vogue.
- The payoffs are in DATA statements in lines 1430 to 1540 if you want to
- change them. Be careful not to leave out or add a comma.
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- Good luck!
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