Amusement devices: games – Games accessories – Game supporting tables or surfaces
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-15
2003-05-27
Rimell, Sam (Department: 2166)
Amusement devices: games
Games accessories
Game supporting tables or surfaces
C463S013000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06568682
ABSTRACT:
1. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE
The present disclosure relates generally to casino or card room gaming involving card games with a predetermined pay table. More particularly, it relates to betting for an enhanced return to winning players participating in various casino or card room table games.
2. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Different betting games presently exist and are played at home and in casinos. Such games should necessarily be exciting, uncomplicated and easy to learn so as to avoid frustrating the players. Card games such as poker and “twenty one” have gained widespread popularity because of their established and well known ranking of hands and their known rules. Furthermore, each of these games usually involves continuous betting opportunities for the players thus increasing player participation and excitement. Lastly, the games move fairly quickly to maintain action and activity. All of these factors have created games that are widely accepted, known and played.
A common way of increasing the excitement and attraction of table betting games is the inclusion of additional betting opportunities and pay out schemes. For example, in a progressive jackpot scheme includes certain outcomes are designated for pay out of a progressive amount. In that progressive jackpot scheme, a portion of each player's progressive jackpot bet is provided to the progressive jackpot thereby increasing the jackpot amount.
Another method of increasing excitement for the players is to provide additional winning hands or winning possibilities. This has previously been accomplished by such means as adding wild cards to poker games. These additional winning opportunities can be accomplished by providing the player with the additional betting opportunities or by providing additional winning combinations of cards. Providing new and previously unavailable winning hands required imagination and must also fit certain characteristics in order to be economically feasible. In order for a large pay out to be feasible for gaming establishments, it is desirable that the odds of achieving a “jackpot” hand are within a predetermined range. By meeting these requirements, the game will be economically feasible for the gaming establishment to offer, and will also provide the opportunity for large jackpot pay out and large winning opportunities.
Betting games, and particularly card betting table games do not have the multi coin advantages of slot machine or video games. Table card games have existed for a long period of time wherein cards are dealt to the player by a single dealer and play commences from that point. Furthermore, the rules and practices for card dealt table games are well understood and easy to follow. As previously mentioned, this makes the betting game more attractive, well accepted and easy to play.
Video betting games have also increased in popularity due to their ease of play. These games are set up to mimic a table game using adaptations of table game rules and cards. Video games are also attractive to both players and gaming establishments because they can be played without the need for a dealer. This provides the players with the opportunity to play the video game in a somewhat isolated environment at the player's preferred pace. Furthermore, the use of a video format conveniently provides many additional pay out for maximum coins bet.
It has become common practice in gaming establishments to provide progressive jackpot pay out in connection with electronic or mechanical gaming devices, such as slot machines, video poker machines or keno machines. Typically a plurality or “bank” of machines are electronically interconnected to a common progressive jackpot meter. As gaming tokens are fed into each machine, the amount shown on the jackpot meter progresses incrementally until some lucky player lines up the winning combination, such as three or four 7's on the same row of a slot machine. In video poker, a Royal Flush normally wins the jackpot, although in some variations, a player must achieve a Royal Flush in an exact order, such as A-K-Q-J-10 from left to right, or in a particular suit, such as Spades. In video keno, a player typically must match 15 out of 15 numbers to win the progressive jackpot. Such variety is available to a limited extent on table games through side bets for accumulated progressive jackpots and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,067 enhances the attractiveness and excitement of live card games in general, and the card game known as “21” or blackjack in particular. By adding to such games a progressively increased pay out which is comparable in size to large jackpots which are now routinely won in casinos when playing slot machines large numbers of which are combined in a single, jackpot payoff system. The creation of progressive jackpots with slot machines is known and relatively easy because of the large number of such machines that are in operation and the ease with which these machines can be electronically combined. The progressive jackpots are generated by accumulating a portion of each bet placed in each machine on the system and establishing sufficiently low odds for winning the jackpot that the likelihood of winning the jackpot on any single game is relatively small. The electromechanical character of the machines and the absence of an intervening dealer who participates in each game on the part of the casino makes it simple and uncomplicated to administer and generate progressive jackpots, say, in excess of several million dollars.
The same is not true for live card games. Such games are neither mechanically nor electrically played, but require a dealer who represents the house (casino). This increases the difficulty of retaining parts of the bets placed during the games and accumulating them in a jackpot, with high odds against winning it. In addition, in live card games the dealer must determine when a player has a jackpot winning hand, which further complicates the setup, generation and payment of progressive jackpots.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,041, which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a live card game, primarily poker or blackjack having progressive pay out. This patent includes an accumulation of a jackpot based on bets placed on a single card game. That is because no casino could keep track of bets placed on multiple tables in one place, much less placed on multiple tables in different gaming establishments within a given locality, be this a single city or an entire state or country.
Although the live card game disclosed in the '041 patent is capable of generating a progressive jackpot, it is necessarily of modest size for two reasons. First, the number of players that may participate in the jackpot is limited to the number of players on a particular table. Secondly, especially for blackjack, the probability of reaching 21 even with the combination of cards which has the smallest probability of reaching this number is relatively high. Consequently, players could win the jackpot in the system disclosed in the '041 patent frequently so that there is little time to accumulate more than a modest jackpot.
As a result, live card games can never match the large size of jackpots that can be won when playing mechanical or video slot machines. Live card games are popular as skill or knowledge of the game improves the players' chances of winning. There is no opportunity to win large sums of money such as the multi-million dollar progressive slot jackpots. Casinos participating in systems including thousands of slot machines that each provides a percentage of the bets into a common pool pay out for progressive jackpots.
Thus, to enhance the attractiveness of live card games and to provide greater player satisfaction, there remains a need to modify live card games so that truly large jackpots; e.g. in excess of $100,000 or $1 million, for example, can be won. An acceptor particularly adapted for use with an apparatus for providing a progressive jackpot pay out to a live casino table game, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,405, incorpor
Garcia Dennis A.
Hogan Nicholas Kurt
Dorr, Carson , Sloan & Birney, P.C.
Mikohn Gaming Corporation
Rimell Sam
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