Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – In a chance application
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-28
2004-03-30
Walberg, Teresa (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
In a chance application
C463S025000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06712693
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic and electro-mechanical games awarding a payout for performance based on skill, chance, or a combination of skill and chance. More particularly, the present invention provides an apparatus and method where a player of a game may select a plurality of winning combinations and rank them according to desired award amounts. A player may, alternatively or additionally, select the odds and associated awards for selected winning combinations, manipulate the odds that a winning combination will appear by adding elements of a winning combination to a group of elements, or weighting the elements which combine to form a winning combination heavier than other elements such that they appear more frequently.
2. State of the Art
Gambling or gaming machines and their operation are well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Earliest embodiments of gaming machines took them form of mechanically-operated devices such as “slot machines” incorporating a series of spinning wheels, each bearing a sequence of symbols along its periphery indicating stop positions. Depending on which sequence of symbols randomly appeared in a viewing window along a win line, various prizes, credits or cash were awarded. Commonly, the appearance of a single symbol in a certain location (such as “cherries” on the first reel) might award a small amount, perhaps less than the amount bet by the player. A pair of the same symbol would pay slightly more. Three of that symbol would pay higher still. However, in the same device, the appearance of a different symbol, such as a “7” or “bar”, might not pay anything for a single or pair, but three “7s” or “bars” might constitute a “jackpot” awarding the highest prize. The overall payout rate, and, thus, the house's profit or advantage, also known as “take,” is determined by a set of “pay schedules,” also known as “payout tables” or merely “pay tables” which rank, for example, winning combinations of symbols or hands of cards having a payout associated with each combination or hand in the ranking. The house's take is conventionally a percentage of the total cash or credit played at the gaming machine (e.g., three percent). The remainder of the money is returned to the players through winnings to encourage further play, thereby sustaining and increasing the house's overall take over a period of time. In conventional electronic gaming machines, the game “personality”, the odds and payout schedule, which is comprised of symbol odds and award amounts stored in memory, determines the theoretical payouts.
FIG. 1
illustrates examples of two pay schedules which may be used by an exemplary, conventional electronic card game known in the art, wherein Nx (N being an integer) is used to indicate the award as a multiplier of the number of coins bet if the winning combination appears. As should be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art by viewing the two pay schedules, the First Pay Schedule is skewed to award some relatively higher payouts for more common hands, while the Second Pay Schedule is skewed to award relatively higher payouts for less common hands.
Gaming machines may also limit the highest jackpot to those who wager the maximum number of credits for each play, often three to five credits (see
FIG. 1
, Royal Flush Jackpot) but conventionally far in excess of that range, in some instances fifteen or more credits and, as known to the inventor herein, as many as 135. A credit may take the form, by way of example and not limitation, of a coin, a token or an electronically-recorded account entry. For convenience and clarity, all such wagers and awards will be referred to herein as “credits”. As shown, the highest obtainable jackpot is often proportionately exaggerated in comparison to jackpots which can be won by betting less than the highest number of credits allowed per play. As an additional example, a single credit bet might yield a highest jackpot of 100 credits. Two credits bet might yield a highest jackpot of 200 credits. However, three credits bet (in a three credit maximum bet device) might yield a possible jackpot of 1000 credits.
Gaming devices controlled by microprocessors are well known in the art, the devices using either mechanical spinning reels or animated video displays of reels, cards, Keno boards and the like. The emergence of such electromechanical and purely electronic devices has opened a vast array of possibilities to gaming device designers. One such innovation has been to interconnect banks of gaming devices, both locally and over broad geographic areas, with a relatively small percentage of each wager being cumulatively added to a centralized and ever-growing jackpot. Such an arrangement is known as a multi-link progressive jackpot. One state-wide progressive jackpot is the Megabucks® program operated by International Gaming Technology throughout the State of Nevada.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,421 to Hamano (Oct. 13, 1992) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,147 to Hamano (Dec. 8, 1992) disclose mechanical rotary gaming devices with associated microprocessors, this arrangement being conventionally used in the form of a modem slot machine, and a method for allowing an owner of the devices to control the stop action of the rotary units to adjust the probability of appearance of the displayed symbols. As a further example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,448,419 to Telnaes (May 15, 1994) describes a mechanical reel slot machine controlled by a microprocessor in such a way as to manipulate and vary the odds of achieving any particular combination of symbols through the use of a random number generator picking numbers representing stop positions, each stop position being represented by one or more numbers so as to control the frequency of occurrence. The scheme creates a “virtual reel” within the microprocessor even though a physical reel is used to display the game outcome symbols.
FIG. 2
is a block diagram of an exemplary electronic game
102
as found in the art. An electronic game
102
typically includes a microprocessor or other computer
104
having a central processing unit (“CPU”)
106
and memory
108
. The computer may be coupled to a number of peripheral devices such as, by example only, a display
110
(e.g., a cathode ray tube (“CRT”), plasma display, liquid crystal display (“LCD”), and/or a display based on light-emitting diodes (“LED”)), possibly having a touchscreen input
112
(see U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,397 to Dickinson (Sep. 14, 1999)), and/or buttons, keys or other manual input devices
114
. Preferably a credit acceptor device
116
(to accept coins, currency, credit cards, gaming cards, smart cards and the like) permits a player to activate game play or place wagers. The electronic game may also include a separate scoreboard display
118
.
Electronic games may also be coupled to one or more other computers such as a central computer
120
of a casino, e.g., via a network card
122
and link
124
, a modem
126
and the like. The game parameters
128
, such as how, when and where particular images will appear on the display screen
110
, how the game works and how to operate the various elements operably coupled to the computer
104
, are-stored in the memory
108
. The electronic game
102
may be housed in a game housing such as, by example only, those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,460 to Fulton (Oct. 13, 1998) and Des. U.S. Pat. No. 404,436 to McGahn et al. (Jan. 19, 1999).
Initiating an electronic game can be done as simply as by inserting a credit or, more comprehensively, for example, by inserting an identification card, such as a “smart card” having a programmed microchip or a magnetic strip coded with a player's identification and credit totals. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,874 to Dickinson et al. (Nov. 30, 1993). U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,045 to Biorge et al. (Sep. 8, 1998) uses a writeable identification card, such as a “smart card” to eliminate the need for a network or direct connection between remote systems and a common controller or point data
Brocketti Julie
IGT
Marshall & Gerstein & Borun LLP
Walberg Teresa
LandOfFree
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