Screeno Screeno Screeno (a portmanteau of "screen bingo") was a form of bingo played in American movie theaters during the Great Depression of the 1930s. To bolster attendance on slow weeknights, the neighborhood movie houses would feature the game in which audience members would have a chance to win cash prizes. The story is that many a theater was saved from bankruptcy by the advent of Screeno (sometimes spelled in capitals: SCREENO). The game was played between the two main movie features. A number dial and a giant spinning needle were projected onto the movie screen. Patrons were provided with toothpicks
Keno 'pakapoo' was based). The Chinese played the game using sheets printed with Chinese characters, often the first 80 characters of the "Thousand Character Classic", from which the winning characters were selected. Eventually, Chinese immigrants introduced keno to the West when they sailed across the Pacific Ocean to help build the First Transcontinental Railroad in the 19th century, where the name was Westernized into boc hop bu and puck-apu. By 1866 it had already become a widely popular gambling game in Houston, Texas, under the name 'Keno'. Keno payouts are based on how many numbers the player chooses and how many