Online Keno in Australia (2026): Where You Can Play, the 2027 Change and the Odds

The state answers are the operators' own statements as we read them on 26 October 2026; we do not judge whether selling KenoGO in NSW, Queensland or WA is lawful there, and this page needs a new check after 1 January 2027. Keno in offshore casino lobbies is a third product, covered further down.

Can you play licensed keno online in Australia? State by state

Two licensed operators sell keno online, and they say different things. keno.com.au's FAQ says: “Keno can be played online by residents living in ACT, Vic, NT, Tas, and SA”, and “We don't currently offer Keno online to residents of QLD, NSW and WA due to legal and regulatory restrictions.” KenoGO's FAQ answers the question “Can I play in NSW, QLD, SA, NT, TAS, WA and ACT?” with “Yes, KenoGO is now available to all Australian residents.” Both were read on 26 October 2026.

For NSW, Queensland and WA the answer is double: keno.com.au says no, KenoGO says yes. We report what each operator says and do not rule on which is right. In Victoria both operators say you can play keno online, and the same holds in the ACT, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and South Australia. In South Australia and Tasmania keno in venues is another operator's game, with its own payout chart (below), and we did not find which chart applies to keno.com.au online tickets bought by residents of South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory; KenoGO prints its own chart. We read these pages from Victoria and did not test whether either operator turns away a customer located in NSW, Queensland or WA. On a phone, keno.com.au says, “you must turn on location services”.

To open a keno.com.au account, its FAQ says, you must be 18 or over and a “resident of the ACT, Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, or Victoria”, and “You will need to verify your identity before you are able to deposit funds or purchase any tickets”; it does this through a third-party provider, GreenID, and an account has “three (3) days to verify your identity before the account is suspended”. A ticket bought in a venue has its own rule: “you must check a ticket or redeem your winnings in any venue that offers Keno within the state or territory you purchased the ticket from.” That answer is about venue tickets; we did not find the rule for online accounts.

What changes on 31 December 2026 and 1 January 2027

Two dates come from two different sources, and they are not the same thing. One is an operator closing its own online game; the other is the law changing for everyone.

AEDT is summer time in Melbourne and Sydney. keno.com.au gives the minute without listing states, and the answer says only “from anywhere”; what stays on its app inside a venue, and what happens to account balances, it does not say on the pages we read.

Why the law matters. Today the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026 has not started, and section 8D of the Interactive Gambling Act takes only electronic scratch and other instant lotteries out of its lottery exemption — so online keno counts as an “excluded lottery service”: the Act's ban on prohibited online gambling services does not cover it, and it may be sold online. From 1 January 2027 the amended section 8D also excludes “a keno-type lottery, to the extent to which the lottery is not a place-based gambling service”. Place-based, in the Act, means keno provided at a particular venue, on that venue's equipment, under a state or territory licence. The Revised Explanatory Memorandum says the practical effect is that these services will be “prohibited from being supplied in Australia”, and that “keno games can continue to be played in land-based venues such as Returned Services League clubs and casinos”.

The Interactive Gambling Act makes it an offence to provide a prohibited interactive gambling service to customers in Australia; we found no new offence for players in the amending Act. Whether a ticket bought on an app inside a venue counts as place-based is a legal question we do not settle. KenoGO's FAQ, home page and terms page did not mention the change when we read them on 26 October 2026, so what KenoGO will do is not known. keno.com.au also says that “Keno is not part of BetStop”, the national self-exclusion register, today.

Three kenos: keno.com.au, KenoGO and casino keno

keno.com.au is the game on the screens in pubs and clubs in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and the ACT. Its FAQ says “you will see the same draw both online and in venue”, and that the 7, 8, 9 and 10-spot jackpots of Keno Classic and Keno Mega Millions “are pooled nationally” across those four. South Australia and Tasmania have their own venue games, with their own payout charts (below).

KenoGO is a different licensee with a different draw. Its FAQ says: “The Victorian government has issued multiple licences to operate Keno. KenoGO is one of these and operates online only at this time. This means that the draw is different from what is displayed in pubs and clubs.” Its footer says it is regulated by the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission; we have not checked the regulator's register. So KenoGO's numbers and jackpots are not the ones on the pub screen.

Casino keno is a random-number game in an online casino lobby: the game's random number generator (RNG) draws the numbers for you alone, each time you press play, from a grid and paytable set by the studio. The grid is not always 80 numbers: Spribe's Keno lets you choose “up to 10 numbers out of 36”. It is not one of the licensed state games, and the Interactive Gambling Act makes it an offence to provide a prohibited interactive gambling service to customers in Australia. What that means for the player is on its own page. Video bingo, the other numbers game these lobbies carry, is covered on our online bingo page.

How a keno game works

One ticket is one pick and one draw, with nothing to decide in between. The steps are for the 80-number game; Spribe's casino Keno draws 10 numbers from 36 instead.

1. Pick how many numbers to play (“spots”) and choose them from a grid of eighty, or let the game pick for you. Keno Classic prints prizes for one to ten spots, and also for 15, 20 and 40.
2. Twenty numbers are drawn. At keno.com.au the draw is shared: its FAQ says the online and venue draws are the same. In a casino game the RNG draws for you alone when you press play.
3. The game counts how many of your numbers are among the twenty: your hits.
4. You are paid from the payout chart for the number of spots you picked. A one-spot ticket pays only if your number is drawn; a ten-spot Keno Classic ticket pays nothing for fewer than four hits.
5. There is no decision after the pick and no way to influence the draw; the next ticket starts again at step 1.

Every keno ticket is therefore a bet on one question: how many of my numbers are among 20 drawn from 80? That question has an exact answer.

Keno odds by spot count

These chances do not depend on the operator, the state or the payout chart; they follow from 80 numbers and 20 drawn, and they are the same for every 80-number game. Only the third column uses a payout chart, Keno Classic's, because a “prize” depends on what the chart pays for.

Read the ten-spot row, the ticket the big-jackpot advertising is built on. Five hits come up on 5.14% of tickets (about 1 in 19), six on 1 in 87, seven on 1 in 621, and all ten on 1 in 8,911,711. Zero to three hits, which pay nothing at Keno Classic, happen on 78.8% of ten-spot tickets. On three spots, one hit (43.1%) is only slightly more likely than none (41.6%).

A “prize” in the third column includes A$1 back on an A$1 ticket, such as two hits on four spots. keno.com.au's own odds table prints 1 in 8,911,712 for ten of ten and its explanation of the draw gives 1 in 8,911,711: the exact figure is 8,911,711.18, and the table rounds up. Its “any prize” column cuts the decimals instead, so it shows 1 in 4.71 where we show 4.72.

Keno payout charts: what each spot count pays, state by state

On the Keno Classic chart used in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, an A$1 ticket gives back between 63.6 and 75.0 cents on average on one to ten spots, and 75.1 cents on 20 spots, by our arithmetic; the other A$1 charts we read run from 59.9 cents (TASkeno, nine spots) to 78.4 cents (KenoGO Classic, nine spots), with jackpots at their starting value. Giving back on average means across many tickets: it is not what any one ticket pays.

NSW, Victoria and the ACT, and Queensland

These payouts are from Keno's Game Guides for NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, downloaded on 19 October 2026. NSW, Victoria and the ACT print one table. Queensland's guide (dated 2016, still published) pays differently in twelve cells; keno.com.au showed our Australian connection the Victorian table, so we could not confirm that Queensland venues still use the 2016 one.

On 20 and 40 spots, missing every number pays: A$100 and A$250,000.

The NSW Keno Rules (Government Gazette No 266, 12 July 2024, read 11 October 2026) set the prize fund contribution for Regular Keno, sold as Keno Classic, at “75% of Subscriptions” — a figure for the whole game, not per spot count; we have not checked whether later rules replaced it. The NSW guide also warns: “Some Keno prizes are subject to abatement. Jackpot prizes are subject to sharing.” In plain words, some prizes can be reduced under the rules, and a jackpot can be split between winners.

Mega Millions, Super Bet and KenoGO

Keno Mega Millions is the A$2 game in the same three guides: ten spots pays from A$5 million for all ten, one spot A$6. By our arithmetic it returns 66.4 to 76.5 cents per dollar staked on one to ten spots, and 80.4 cents only on 40 spots. The Gazette sets its prize fund contribution at “76.5% of Subscriptions”, again for the whole game.

Super Bet is a Keno Superplay ticket: in keno.com.au's example, shown to a Victorian location on 19 October 2026, one A$1 line each on the 7, 8, 9 and 10-spot jackpots, A$4 a ticket. We found no separate Super Bet prize table. If each line is paid from the ordinary Keno Classic table — our reading — the ticket returns 64.2%; but the ACT guide says “To win a prize on a Keno Superplay ticket, you must match all numbers within a singular line”, and we have not read Superplay rules that settle it.

KenoGO Classic, the Victoria-licensed online game (above), prints its own A$1 table: Queensland's 2016 guide with four low prizes raised (four hits on seven, eight and nine spots, five hits on ten). By our arithmetic from KenoGO's prize list it returns 72.2 to 78.4 cents, the top figure on nine spots. We have not read KenoGO's rules on its prize fund or on reducing and splitting prizes, so the figures above 75 cents are arithmetic only.

South Australia and Tasmania

Neither uses the Keno Classic table. SA Lotteries' prize table (dated December 2020, still published by The Lott) has one jackpot, on ten spots, and fixed prizes on seven to nine; The Lott's keno pages did not show us a South Australian version, so its current status is not confirmed. TASkeno pays from the settlement schedule in the Rules for TASkeno, Version 1.0, approved 3 February 2023. These are the venue games' charts: we did not find which chart applies to keno.com.au online tickets bought by residents of South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

SA's table adds that “SPOT 10 PRIZES ARE SUBJECT TO SHARING”. The table refers to the Lotteries (Keno) Rules for details; we could not find them online on 19 October 2026, so we give no prize-fund percentage for SA. TASkeno's rule 17.1 provides “an overall Seventy Five per cent (75%) return to Players” from the schedule and cash bonus prizes together, and rule 7.2 pays any jackpot share on top of the schedule amount. By our reading, that is why nine spots, with its jackpot left out, works out at 59.9 cents.

Northern Territory keno payouts: not verified (19 October 2026). Western Australia has no payout chart here: Crown Perth's keno page says keno was to be retired there, with Sunday 28 June 2026 the final day to play (read 19 October 2026), and keno elsewhere in WA was not verified.

How to read a keno payout chart

Each row lists the prize for each number of hits; the return is every prize multiplied by the exact chance of that many hits (the method behind the odds table), added up. A worked example, our arithmetic, for A$1 on four spots at Keno Classic: 0.003063 × A$130 (four hits) + 0.043248 × A$3 (three) + 0.212635 × A$1 (two) = 39.8 + 13.0 + 21.3 cents = 74.1 cents. That is an average over many tickets, not what any one ticket pays: about three four-spot tickets in four pay nothing, and the A$1 for two hits is only your stake back.

Whatever is left of 100% is the operator's share. Because the chances are fixed, the return depends only on the chart, so it can differ between spot counts in one game and between two games that look the same on screen. For a casino title the chart is on its rules screen — the same check we describe for pokies.

Every return figure in this section takes jackpots at their starting value and leaves out jackpot growth, bonus multipliers, cash bonus prizes, and the rules that reduce prizes or split them between winners. That is why seven to ten spots look low where the jackpot grows, and SA's fixed seven-to-nine-spot prizes do not. These are our figures, not the operators'.

What a keno ticket costs

The NSW, Victorian and ACT Game Guides say: “The Minimum ticket cost is $1 on the Keno Classic game and $2 on the Keno Mega Millions game.” Queensland's 2016 guide gives a minimum ticket cost of A$1, and the TASkeno rules a minimum wager of A$1 per game. KenoGO speaks of “a $1 standard ticket”, with its Bonus tickets at double that and “All KenoGO Jackpot tickets” at A$2; it does not use the word minimum. We did not find a minimum for South Australia or the Northern Territory. All of these were read on 19 October 2026.

Casino keno: Spribe's paytable, the lobbies and bonus terms

Spribe's Keno draws 10 numbers from 36, so neither the odds table above nor the state charts apply to it. The multipliers below are what the studio's demo showed (in USD), opened from a server in Germany on 19 October 2026 because the game did not load through our Australian connection. Spribe gives a return to player (RTP) of 97% on its page; by our arithmetic the multipliers return 96.9% at one pick and 97.0% at two to ten.

A casino can run another configuration; what any Australian lobby runs is not verified. For the other keno titles in these lobbies, from Mascot, InOut, TaDa and others, we found no paytable or RTP published by the studio (19 October 2026).

Keno in casino lobbies and bonus terms

Title counts are what each casino's own game search returned for “keno” from an Australian connection, without logging in, on the date in the row; a listing is not the same as the game opening for an Australian account. Bonus treatment is quoted from each casino's terms on the date in the row. Wagering, also called playthrough, is how much you must bet before bonus money can be withdrawn, usually a set number of times the bonus; each game counts a percentage of every bet toward it, so at 100% an A$1 keno bet counts as A$1, and at 5% as 5 cents. Scores come from our reviews and do not rate keno.

Of the terms we read on 27 October 2026, only Grand Rush names keno: at 100% toward playthrough, and as a game its first three deposit bonuses may be used on. Golden Crown does not name keno, but its terms count only slots at 100% and give 5% to “lottery, or other available games”; by our reading keno falls in that 5% class. Ozwin's terms say “non-pokies games” do not count toward free-bonus wagering “unless specifically stated”. At PlayAmo, Woo Casino, CasinoChan, King Billy and BitStarz keno is not in any listed class, so its rate is unknown — not 5%, not a ban, just not stated; King Johnnie's general terms do not state it either. Read the offer page before playing keno with a bonus. A keno rule is not a verdict on a casino, and we did not check whether Grand Rush accepts Australian players today; its withdrawals are covered in its review.

Spots, variance and the myths

Spot count is mainly a choice of risk. A one-spot ticket pays on one ticket in four, and only A$3; a ten-spot ticket pays nothing on most tickets and, very rarely, enormously: on ten spots you see no hits at all on about one ticket in twenty-two and a top prize almost never. At Keno Classic in NSW, Victoria and the ACT the return also differs by spot count: 72.2 to 75.0 cents per A$1 on one to six spots and 63.6 to 64.7 on seven to ten, by our arithmetic with jackpots at their starting value (the payout chart). Pick the spot count for how much swing you can stand, then check what the chart pays for that count.

Hot and cold numbers do not change the odds. keno.com.au defines them as “the 10 most (Hot) and 10 least (Cold) drawn numbers for that day”, and says its draw method means “every number combination has an equal chance of being drawn, without bias or preference”. A number that has not come up for 30 draws has the same chance as any other in the next one.

What you can check, and what you cannot. The payout chart and its return are on paper; the draw generator is not something we, or a player, can test. For a casino title we cannot test the RNG either, and we do not claim it is fair.

FAQ

Sources and method

Hit probabilities are exact hypergeometric values for 20 numbers drawn from 80 without replacement, computed for each spot count from one to ten and for 15, 20 and 40 spots; for Spribe's Keno, 10 drawn from 36. Online availability, the end of keno.com.au's play-from-anywhere game, its account and ticket rules, its odds table and its statements on the draw are from keno.com.au's FAQ, read in full from the content system that feeds its FAQ pages on 26 October 2026 through an Australian connection in Melbourne; KenoGO's availability, licence statement and draw are from its FAQ, home page and terms page, read the same day. Keno Classic, Keno Mega Millions and minimum ticket costs are from Keno's Game Guides for NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, downloaded on 19 October 2026; Super Bet from keno.com.au's Superplay page and the ACT guide; KenoGO Classic and ticket prices from kenogo.com.au's how-to-play page; South Australia from SA Lotteries' prize table (December 2020) hosted by The Lott; Tasmania from taskeno.com.au and the Rules for TASkeno, Version 1.0; Western Australia from Crown Perth's keno page; all read on 19 October 2026. The prize fund contributions of 75% and 76.5% are from the NSW Keno Rules in Government Gazette No 266 (12 July 2024), read on 11 October 2026. The return columns are our arithmetic from those payouts and the same probabilities, with jackpots at their starting value. The change from 1 January 2027 is from the text of the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026 (No. 72, 2026) on the Federal Register of Legislation, the bill's Revised Explanatory Memorandum on the Parliament of Australia website and sections 8D and 15 of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 as compiled before the change, all read on 19 October 2026; this is our reading of the law, not legal advice. The only casino title's paytable and return given are Spribe's Keno: multipliers from the studio's demo, opened from a server in Germany, and 97% from spribe.co, both on 19 October 2026. Casino rows were read from an Australian connection in Sydney on 27 October 2026, without an account: keno title counts from each casino's own game search, bonus terms as each site serves them, general terms pages for Grand Rush, King Johnnie, Ozwin and King Billy, and home pages for King Johnnie and Ozwin; rows with another date say so. We read terms and published tables and did the arithmetic; we did not buy tickets or play. We earn a commission through links marked “Visit”; it did not decide the order of the table.

Casino keno in offshore lobbies is not one of the licensed state games; the Interactive Gambling Act makes it an offence to provide a prohibited interactive gambling service to customers in Australia. Gambling is a cost, not an income; you must be 18 or over. Free, confidential support is available 24/7 on 1800 858 858 through Gambling Help Online.