Keno odds and payouts by state: which state pays back most?

Keno odds are the same in every state. Each lottery draws 20 numbers from 1 to 80, so your chance of matching your numbers depends only on how many you pick (each number you pick is a spot). What changes from state to state is the prize. We took the published prize tables for keno in nine states and worked out what each game pays back. Virginia’s keno pays back 69 to 74 cents of each dollar, most others 60 to 70 cents, and Washington’s once-a-day game about 50.

Which state’s keno pays back the most?

Virginia’s. A $1 Virginia keno ticket pays back 69 to 74 cents on average on its 2-spot to 10-spot games, and 75 cents on its 1-spot. Massachusetts comes next at 68 to 70 cents, then North Carolina, Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan at about 63 to 67 cents, and Georgia at 60 to 65. Maryland pays back 54 to 62 cents, and Washington’s Daily Keno about half.

Each figure is our math from the lottery’s own prize table for a $1 ticket in the base game, with no multiplier or other add-on. The “Paid back” column covers the 2-spot to 10-spot games. Ohio and Michigan use the same prize table. Massachusetts also sells 11-spot and 12-spot games, which pay back 69 to 70 cents. These are averages over millions of draws. Most single tickets win nothing.

In six of the nine states, the 1-spot game pays back exactly half. You have a 1 in 4 chance of matching your one number, and a match pays $2. Virginia pays $3 for the same match, or 75 cents per dollar. Connecticut and Massachusetts pay $2.50.

Are keno odds the same in every state?

Yes. All nine lotteries draw 20 numbers from 80, so the odds of each result depend only on how many numbers you pick. Matching your one number on a 1-spot ticket is 1 in 4 everywhere, and matching all 10 on a 10-spot ticket is 1 in 8,911,711. The odds of winning any prize vary a little, because states pay prizes for different numbers of matches. Virginia pays small prizes for more of them, so its tickets win something more often.

“Most states” covers every state on this page except Virginia. Two tickets are the exception. Massachusetts also pays $1 for matching one number on a 2-spot ticket, so that ticket wins something 1 time in 2.3. Connecticut and Maryland pay nothing for matching 4 of 9, so their 9-spot ticket wins something 1 time in 9.7.

What does keno pay for 4 numbers?

Match all 4 on a 4-spot ticket and you win $100 in Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut, $75 in North Carolina, $72 in Ohio and Michigan, $70 in Georgia, $50 in Maryland and $24 in Washington. The odds are 1 in 326.4 in every one of those states. Matching 3 or 2 of your 4 pays a smaller prize.

A bigger top prize doesn’t always mean a better game. Connecticut pays $100 for 4 of 4 but $3 for 3 of 4, and pays back a little less than North Carolina, which pays $75 and $5. Matching 3 of 4 happens about 14 times as often as matching all 4, so most of what a 4-spot ticket pays back comes from the small prizes.

Every prize here is for a $1 ticket. A $2 ticket pays twice as much at the same odds, apart from the limits some states set on top prizes.

How much does an hour of keno cost?

In most states, keno draws every 3 to 4 minutes, so the cost adds up faster than the ticket price suggests. Play a 4-spot ticket for $1 on every draw for an hour and you bet $15 to $20, depending on the state. On average, the lottery keeps about $4 of that in Virginia and about $7 in Maryland.

Massachusetts pays back more than North Carolina but costs more an hour, because it draws more often. Ohio and Michigan say their draws run every few minutes without giving an exact gap, so they aren’t in this table. These are averages. A lucky hour can end ahead and an unlucky one can lose the whole $15, but the longer you play, the closer you get to the average.

Slot machines keep less of each dollar, 7 to 10 cents in most states, but a spin takes a few seconds. At $1 a spin, our guide to slot machine payout percentages by state puts an hour of play at about $43 in Nevada. Texas scratch-offs pay back 60 to 80 cents per dollar, in the same range as keno, and our guide to which scratch-off has the best odds works out each game’s payout.

Do keno multipliers change the payout?

Not the share you get back, in the two states we checked. A multiplier multiplies any prize you win by a number drawn with the game, and you pay extra for it. In North Carolina it doubles the ticket price and ranges from 1X to 10X, and going by the published odds of each one, it averages 2X. The Keno Bonus in Massachusetts works out the same way. So you get back about the same share as the base game. The odds of matching your numbers don’t change, but an hour of play costs twice as much.

Other add-ons, like Georgia’s Bulls-Eye or progressive jackpots on some spot games, pay extra prizes on top of the base game’s. They’re priced separately, so the payout figures in our tables are for the base game only.

Which states aren’t on this page?

More states run keno than the nine here, including New York (Quick Draw), Pennsylvania, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Rhode Island and Delaware. We left a state out when we couldn’t get its full prize table from the lottery itself, on its website or in its official game rules. Tables copied onto other sites go out of date when a lottery changes a game. If your state’s lottery publishes its table, you can use the method below on it.

Quebec’s lottery runs Banco, a keno-style game that draws 20 numbers from 70 instead of 80, once a day. Its odds differ from every game on this page, and our guide to Banco odds of winning works them out.

How did we work out what each state’s keno pays back?

Each lottery publishes a prize table for every spot game, showing what a $1 ticket wins for each number of matches. With 20 numbers drawn from 80, the odds of matching some of your numbers come from counting combinations, the same math the lotteries use to work out their odds. Multiply each prize by its chance of being won, add them up, and you get what a $1 ticket pays back on average.

Our math matches the lotteries’ own numbers. Our odds of winning any prize agree with the overall odds each lottery publishes for each game. Connecticut’s official game rules (opens in a new tab) say its overall payout is approximately 65.21%, and our figures for its spot games run from 63% to 66%. For Washington, we used the prize table in the state’s lottery rules, WAC 315-35-040 (opens in a new tab), last amended in January 2026.

Lotteries change their prize tables from time to time, so check your state’s current table before you rely on one.

A prize draw you enter by saving

Lodavo is our prize-linked savings app, with weekly cash prize draws. You get free tickets for the money you save, and the more you save, the more tickets you get. Your savings stay in your own bank account, so they’re still there whether you win or not. On keno, by comparison, the lottery keeps about 25 to 52 cents of every dollar.

It’s live in Canada, where the prizes are smaller than a keno top prize, and it’s coming to the US.

We don’t sell lottery tickets, and no lottery paid to appear on this page. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.