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Suppose you have decided to play a $1 6-spot. Take a blank keno ticket, a crayon and cross out your 6 choices with a plain X. On the right of the ticket write "$1" and beneath that the number "6" to indicate you are playing a 6-spot.
Having marked your ticket you now bring it to a dealer (also called a writer) at the front of the keno lounge. Hand your ticket and money to the dealer. He or she will make a copy of your ticket and give you the copy, retaining the original. Dealers don't use crayons to make copies: some keno lounges use brushes and india ink while others use computers to generate copies. You are supposed to verify your copy before leaving the window because in case of a big win the house will verify that you actually marked those numbers on the original ticket you gave the dealer. They index and save the original tickets and will hunt through them if you catch a big winner. This is an anti-counterfeiting measure.
Once you have your copy you find someplace comfortable and wait for the rest of the players to be served. Eventually this happens and the house declares the game "closed". All the original tickets are collected and bundled together someplace visible to a video camera, and the balls are mixed in the hopper. One of the dealers opens the portals and the chosen balls work their way out. One by one the dealer calls out the numbers and throws the switch that causes that number to light on the keno board. After the 20th and last number is chosen the dealers return to their stations. The few lucky winners rush to cash in while the rest of the players decide what numbers to pick for the next game. U.S.
tax law requires winning tickets to be cashed immediately after the game; otherwise casinos could deduct unclaimed payouts as potential future liabilities. At least, this is what the casinos claim. Whether there actually is such a tax law on the books is an open question. Certainly casinos don't want to keep original tickets and other records any longer than absolutely necessary, so a short time limit is obviously convenient for them.
If you have a losing ticket for a game and you want to play the same ticket for the next game, you don't need to mark up another blank ticket.
Just hand the losing ticket to the dealer along with the money and they will make you another copy. Actually this works for winning tickets, too. If you cash in a ticket that pays off, the dealer will probably ask "Want to play it again?" If you answer yes you'll get back a new ticket and your winnings, less the cost of the ticket for the next game.
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