Bally Gaming, Inc.

Dale Shepherd

Warren Rapelye White

Dale Hermansen

Doug Harvey

Mick Delaney

Nate Burkett

Travis Green

Eugene Malina

Systems, methods, and devices may be capable of allowing a player to purchase an instance of game play at a game system with a pre-paid ticket or with another item of value. The game system may determine a denomination of a unit of a currency and generate a session request indicative of the denomination. The game system may also determine a ticket code of a ticket and generate a session request indicative of the ticket code. A remote authorizer may provide the game system with game authorization indicative of a number of entertainment credits in response to receiving a session request.

Systems, methods, and devices for providing purchases of instances of game play at a hybrid ticket/currency game machine

Various methods for coordinating a distributed game in a gaming system are disclosed herein. According to one method, a player request is received at a dedicated game manager to participate in a distributed game where the dedicated game manager is in communication with other game managers in the polymorphous network. The dedicated game manager then determines whether it is an appropriate session host to satisfy the player request. If the dedicated manager is deemed the appropriate session host for the distributed game, play of the distributed game is managed at the dedicated game manager. Otherwise, the player request is forwarded to the appropriate session host.

Methods for coordinating a distributed game in a gaming environment

Various embodiments of a gaming system for coordinating a distributed game in a gaming environment are disclosed herein. According to one embodiment, the gaming system includes a polymorphous network of game managers. In the polymorphous network, each game manager is dynamically interconnected with one or more of the other game managers, and the dynamic interconnections are based on a game manager criteria or gaming data. The gaming system also includes a plurality of groups of gaming machines where a first group of gaming machines is only in communication with a first game manager. The first game manager receives game requests from the first group of gaming machines to initiate a game. The first game manager initiates the game if a sufficient number of game requests are received by the first game manager. Alternatively, the first game manager forwards the game requests to an appropriate game manager if the first gaming machine manager receives an insufficient number of game requests.

Systems for coordinating a distributed game in a gaming environment

Growing community of inventors

Fort Collins, CO, United States of America

Dale Shepherd