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It's usually around 1 p.m. on weekdays when Keno players start trickling into the British American Club on Simonds Road in Fitchburg. By 3:30, the place is hopping, as a good-sized group of Keno players watches a television screen to find out whether they picked the right numbers.
"The intensity is pretty high sometimes," said Jon Ricciutti, president of the club. "People like to take a chance. When somebody wins four or five numbers, they get excited and there is a little yelling and screaming. It's exciting."
He said he doesn't notice any of his clientele getting into trouble by betting too much on Keno.
"We might have people who set themselves to a certain limit, then quit. It's like if you go into a casino, you put your gambling money aside," Ricciutti said.
There are 18 places to play Keno in Fitchburg, which like many communities has seen the game's popularity grow in recent years.
Players wagered about $4.2 million in fiscal 2005 at Fitchburg Keno establishments, about 16 percent of the net sales in all the lottery games combined in the city, including scratch tickets and jackpot games.
Keno revenue made up about 16.6 percent of the total $4.4 billion in lottery sales statewide in fiscal 2005.
Across Massachusetts, recent format changes have fueled a surge in Keno sales.
The state collected $742 million in sales from Keno last year, a 16 percent increase over fiscal 2002's $640 million take. This is despite a statewide workplace smoking ban enacted in 2004, which lottery officials said temporarily hurt Keno sales.
Lottery officials credited the overall increase to two key changes.
First, in 2003, the lottery extended the time that Keno could be played to add another 22 hours per week, allowing games to start at 5 a.m. and end at 1 a.m.
Second, the lottery shortened the intervals between Keno games from five minutes to four minutes.
Lottery officials said the time change was mainly to let morning commuters play on their way to work.
But some compulsive gambling experts have questioned the Keno expansion, saying it could cause more casual gamblers to develop problems.
"With more time to be able to play, you increase the chance that people will play more and potentially get into trouble," said Marlene Warner, program director for the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling.
Still, Warner said that her office receives far fewer calls for help from people in trouble because of Keno compared to those who have problems with scratch tickets or sports gambling.
"We have people who buy boxes of scratch tickets. Keno is not their number-one problem. Unfortunately, people find all kinds of ways to get into trouble," Warner said.
Keno is different because unlike a scratch ticket, the player has to wait to see the numbers and find out whether they won.
"A scratch ticket is instantaneous. People really have a problem if they have to know immediately if they won. It's the high or rush that they're looking for," Warner said.
Typically, Keno is played in bars, convenience stores and restaurants, with a total of 1,725 agents statewide. Players can bet between $1 and $20, and pick a set of numbers between 1 and 80 on a ticket. An employee then feeds the ticket into a machine, and moments later the winning numbers will appear on a TV screen one by one. Prizes range from $1 to $1 million.
Keno players comprise about 10 percent of the state's adult population, according to research compiled by the lottery commission.
Males comprise 62 percent of Keno players, with 38 percent female.
That's different from the lottery as a whole, where about half the players are male and half are female.
Lottery officials say 59 percent of Keno players have household incomes of $50,000 or more, and 59 percent are employed full-time, while 9 percent are part-time workers.
About 72 percent of Keno players play more than once per month, and on average, they spend $43 per month, or $516 per year, on Keno.
Friday is the busiest day of the week for Keno, and the heaviest betting happens between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Lisa McDonald, a lottery spokeswoman, said Keno is a unique game in that it is interactive, and can be played in groups.
"It's more of a social game than some of our other products. It's for a niche player," McDonald said.
She added that the lottery recently tried to enhance Keno by improving the graphics, and by adding a "multiplier" feature which can increase winnings by up to 10 times.
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