1812results about "Card games" patented technology

A gaming apparatus and method including a primary game and a player interactive bonus game actuated by a qualifying outcome of the primary game and including a bonus award display showing a multiplicity of images displayed on a video monitor from which a player selects until achieving a pair of matched bonus awards.

An apparatus and method for an automated tournament gaming system (10) comprising a central server computer (20) operatively coupled to, inter alia, a plurality of gaming machine G1, G2 . . . GN for automatically harnessing any of the gaming machines for automatically inciting and running a tournament where a group of players are participating for a period after which prizes are awarded to the winning tournament play participants. In addition, the system (10) includes a host site computer (200) operatively coupled to a plurality of the central servers (20) at a variety of remote gaming sites C1, C2 . . . CN for providing a multi-site progressive automated tournament gaming system (210). The multi-site system (210) is integrated into the system (10) to increase the winnings, progressive amounts and the total buy-ins.

A gaming device and method that allows a primary display and secondary display to be correlated to the extent that symbols of the primary display have vectors which direct that symbol associated with the vector onto the secondary display. The secondary display remains constant through successive games except to the extent modified by the provision of a symbol vector which mandates a change in the symbol depiction on the secondary game. A bonus screen is provided based on the certain outcome of the primary game.

A cooperative group gaming apparatus and method therefore including a plurality of gaming machines including means for individual play, means for communal play and communal payout means influenced by any gaming machine participating in cooperative group play, said plurality of gaming machines operatively coupled to at least one controller which, inter alia, communicates with at least one display means for displaying the effects of cooperative group play to game players.

Disclosed are methods, apparatus, and systems, including computer program products, implementing techniques for securing a gaming machine for a player of the gaming machine using a mobile device such as a cell phone associated with the player. A player input requests securing of the gaming machine. Responsive to the player input, an access code and a security code are retrieved. The access code defines an access point of a communication system. The security code is specific to a game play session for the player at the gaming machine. The retrieved access code and security code are provided for the player. When the mobile device accesses the communications system and submits the security code, a secure signal is sent to the gaming machine, instructing the gaming machine to enter a remote game play state. The gaming machine can be released from the remote game play state responsive to a releasing event. In one implementation, a wireless interface enables communication between the mobile device and gaming machine according to a wireless protocol such as Bluetooth.

A gaming machine has a symbol display arrangement that displays a variation action of a variable plurality of symbols that are necessary for playing a game. A predictive display arrangement performs a predictive display that informs the player of the likelihood of the appearance of a specific symbol display state when the variation action is stopped. A determination whether or not the symbol variation action is to be stopped with the appearance thereon of the specific symbol display state is made by a controller that also determines which predictive display mode from among a plurality of predetermined predictive display modes is to be displayed. In one embodiment, the controller controls the predictive display arrangement so that the probability of the appearance of a specific symbol display state is changeable in conjunction with the change in the game with the passage of time. The player will expect the appearance of the predictive display having a high likelihood, and therefore the player's expectation of the appearance of the specific symbol display state can be sustained from the start of the variation display to the stopping thereof. The player's expectation for the "big hit" is enhanced by changing the predictive display in which the likelihood of the "big hit" is increased.

Embodiments of the instant invention are directed to a method, apparatus and system for lottery gaming, wherein a simple, objective, verifiable and reliable method of selecting the winning lottery numbers is provided. In preferred embodiments, a user accesses the game via a wide area network or by some other remote means and inputs required information, including payment information and the user's selections for the game. Prior to any user participating in the game, the game provider selects elements that comprise a winning combination. Preferably, the elements that comprise the winning combination are objective and verifiable elements, such as, for example, a portion of the closing stock market price on a given day for a specified set of markets. As such, the elements comprising the winning combinations are objective and can be verified by all of the users. The definition of the winning combination can be redefined for each new game, or as it is generated from a indicia providing source, can remain the same for all games or a set number of games.

The present invention is directed to a playing card dispensing shoe apparatus, system and method wherein the shoe has a card scanner which scans the indicia on a playing card as the card moves along and out of a chute of the shoe by operation of the dealer. The scanner comprises an optical-sensor used in combination with a neural network which is trained using error back-propagation to recognize the card suits and card values of the playing cards as they are moved past the scanner. The scanning process in combination with a central processing unit (CPU) determines the progress of the play of the game and, by identifying card counting systems or basic playing strategies in use by the players of the game, provides means to limit or prevent casino losses and calculate the Theoretical Win of the casino, thus also providing an accurate quality method of the amount of comps to be given a particular player. The shoe is also provided with additional devices which make it simple and easy to access, record and display other data relevant to the play of the game. These include means for acconunodating a "customer-tracking card" which reads each player's account information from a magnetic stripe on the card, thus providing access to the player's customer data file stored on the casino's computer system, and one or more alpha-numeric keyboards and LCD displays used to enter and retrieve player and game information. Also included are keyboards on the game table so that each player can individually select various playing or wagering options using their own keyboard.

A method of application of popular casino, lottery, and sports games formatted and modified specifically for the parimutuel race industry. The invention games possess unique rules and formats to govern their play within parimutuel race wagering while reflecting existing games from casinos, lotteries and sports. Wagers are placed electronically with parimutuel race operators who retain a percentage of all bets as determined by individual state law. Outcomes of the invention games are determined by their unique rules and interpretation of current parimutuel racing results.

A system automatically monitors playing of a game and gathers data in real time. An overhead imaging system automatically images the game table and provides an overhead view of the game table and/or the dealer's chip tray. A lateral imaging system images the gaming area, especially the wagering regions, to provide a lateral view of the chips on the table. An automatic card shoe system dispenses cards and automatically images at least one card immediately prior to its withdrawal from the shoe. A positioning module processes images from the overhead imaging system to automatically track the position of gaming objects such as for example playing cards, chips, currency bills on the gaming table. An identity module processes images from the overhead imaging system to automatically track the identity of gaming objects on the gaming table. A chip identity module processes overhead images of the chip tray and lateral images of the gaming region to automatically determine, the identity and position of gaming chips. A card-shoe software associated with the automatic card shoe system processes signals from the automatic card shoe system to automatically identify the game related value of at least one card immediately prior to its withdrawal from the shoe by a dealer.

A server for facilitating real-time betting, wherein the server communicates with clients via a distributed computing network. The server includes a memory storing an operating system, an instruction set, event data related to a sporting event, gambler data related to gamblers participating in a competition based upon the sporting event and site data related to electronic pages associated with the real-time para-mutuel betting. A processor runs the instruction set and communicates with the memory and the distributed computing network. The processor is operative to enroll the gamblers by presenting betting rules associated with the sporting event, collect wagering from the gamblers, accept predictions for discrete events within the sporting event from each gambler and determine a first winner of the competition based upon the predictions. Applications include lotteries with entries received from mobile devices.

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for moving playing cards from a first group of cards into plural hands of cards, wherein each of the hands contains a random arrangement of the same quantity of cards. The apparatus comprises a card receiver for receiving the first group of cards, a single stack of card-receiving compartments generally adjacent to the card receiver, the stack generally vertically movable, an elevator for moving the stack, a card-moving mechanism between the card receiver and the stack, and a microprocessor that controls the card-moving mechanism and the elevator so that an individual card is moved into an identified compartment. The number of compartments receiving cards and the number of cards moved to each compartment may be selected.

A displaying device comprises an outer rotational member and an inner rotational member. The displaying device is incorporated with a game machine. The outer rotational member of the displaying device is rotated in a lateral direction of the game machine. The inner rotational member is rotated in a perpendicular direction of the game machine. The rotational members are rotated in the different directions with each other, and are respectively stopped. After the rotational members have been stopped, a game result is determined in accordance with a stop state of the rotational members. The outer rotational member represents a dividend of the game, and the inner rotational member represents whether the game is a win or loss.

Methods of playing games of chance and gaming devices and systems comprising a display of a plurality of symbols where at least one symbol may be interchanged with another symbol of the plurality of symbols. After a combination of symbols is randomly generated and the results are displayed to a player, the player may have the opportunity to interchange at least one displayed symbol with another symbol in order to configure a more advantageous symbol arrangement. Interchanging may include transposing, sliding, or moving one or more symbols that are generated by way of a random process. Furthermore, interchanging may include a slide game or wraparound type movement of symbols or trading a symbol for another symbol provided by an exterior source. Additionally, the interchanging opportunity may be limited by way of constraints applied to movement of the symbols, time for interchanging, or other criteria, and may be conditioned on placing an additional or side bet.

A dual wagering game method for one or more players based on simultaneous participation in two mutually exclusive game components with a payoff being the product of the game component outcomes. Wagers are made in both a repeatable base game component and a nonrepeatable bonus game component which components are mutually exclusive. The outcome of the bonus game component results in a multiplier value. Winnings from repeated plays of the base game component are accumulated until a game ending event occurs and the player receives a payout of any accumulated winnings from the base game component multiplied by the multiplier value determined in the bonus game component.

A system for establishing a wager for a gaming application comprises a server, a processor remotely coupled to the server, and a memory coupled to the processor. The server hosts a gaming application for a plurality of users. The processor receives a wager offer generated by a first user, wherein the wager offer is associated with the gaming application. The processor further presents the wager offer to a plurality of second users, and receives a wager acceptance by a second user. The wager offer and the wager acceptance combine to form a wager between the first user and the second user. The processor further generates a wager record in response to receiving the wager acceptance. The wager record is associated with the wager between the first user and the second user, and comprises a plurality of wager parameters. The memory stores the wager record according to a wager record identifier.

A system for determining the skill of a player eliminates the element of chance by comparing players who have the same initial position. In the case of cards, the initial position is the hand dealt to the player and in tile games, it is the initial distribution and arrangement of tiles. A player with a less than advantageous initial position may win a game over an opponent having a better initial position. It cannot conclusively be said whether this win is due to the good play of the winner or the bad play of the loser. However, it can clearly be said that the winning player has a higher skill level than the losing player.

A card inspection device includes a first loading area adapted to receive one or more decks of playing cards. A drive roller is located adjacent the loading area and positioned to impinge on a card if a card were present in the loading area. The loading area has an exit through which cards are urged, one at a time, by a feed roller. A transport path extends from the loading area exit to a card accumulation area. The transport path is further defined by two pairs of transport rollers, one roller of each pair above the transport path and one roller of each pair below the transport path. A camera is located between the two pairs of transport rollers, and a processor governs the operation of a digital camera and the rollers. A printer produces a record of the device's operation based on an output of the processor, and a portion of the transport path is illuminated by one or more blue LEDs.

The present invention is directed to a gaming device having a plurality of reels each having a plurality of award symbols, a terminating condition, at least one award indicator and a processor connected to the reels. The processor activates the reels and randomly stops one of the reels. An award is provided to the player if an award symbol is indicated on the stopped reel. If a terminating condition occurs with respect to a reel, the reel is deactivated. If a terminating condition does not occur, the processor re-activates the reel. The gaming device continues to activate the reels until all of the reels are deactivated. The player then receives the total accumulated award for the bonus game.

The method of the present invention involves card games in which the player plays multiple hands of cards during one play session. The cards are dealt out in horizontal fashion and may include three card, five card, seven card or higer card games. The player may wager on each horizontal row of cards dealt separately and each row of cards will be played as a separate poker game. The player may also make a separate wager (Parlay Wager) that will payoff if multiple winning hands are obtained in one play session. Additional versions of the game also provide for additional wagering. For example in a three card three hand game, the horizontal dealing of the cards are such that each row of cards are situated in sequential order so that first hand is directly over the second hand and the second hand is directly over the third so that a three card by three card matrix is created. In addition to having the ability to wager and win the three hands drawn in horizontal fashion and the parlay wager for multiple winning hands, the player also has the ability to win five additional ways (i.e., three vertical paylines and two diagonal combinations paylines).

The present invention provides a gaming device having unisymbol display reels, wherein each symbol on a display of the gaming device represents or is included on a different reel. The present invention structures the paylines of the gaming device in such that the gaming device can include different reel strips having different winning symbols or different proportions of winning symbols, while still maintaining payout symbols and payout combinations that have uniform odds and uniform payouts.

A video poker game that uses additional cards to enhance the value of some or all winning card combinations (“Reward Cards”). In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, two Reward Cards are added the traditional fifty-two card deck of playing cards. These Reward Cards do not help form any winning poker hands, but only enhance the value of some or all of the winning poker hands formed using the traditional fifty-two cards in the deck. A single Reward Card would double the payouts; two Reward Cards would quadruple the payouts. As a result, a preferred embodiment offers awards up to four times the traditional awards; maintains the full values of the underlying pay table; minimally impacts traditional poker strategy; and results in an overall return to the player of 99.2948% using a preferred pay table.

In a game machine, a reel unit is disposed behind each display window. The reel unit has an outer reel and an inner reel which coaxially rotate. The inner reel carries plural inner symbols at a certain pitch. The outer reel carries plural but less outer symbols. The outer symbol has a larger size than the inner symbol, and is opaque. The outer symbol on the inner symbol hides the inner symbol. A symbol combination is formed of only plural inner symbols, or at least one of the inner symbols and at least one of the outer symbols.

A spinning reel slot machine comprises a plurality of mechanical rotatable reels and a video display. In response to a wager, the reels are rotated and stopped to randomly place symbols on the reels in visual association with a display area. The video display provides a video image superimposed upon the reels. The video image may be interactive with the reels and include such graphics as payout values, a pay table, pay lines, bonus game features, special effects, thematic scenery, and instructional information.

A display for game is provided with a judgment foraging whether or not a specified game state is obtained in response to a predetermined input signal, a special pattern determination for determining a special pattern that represents the specified game state, a demonstration determination for determining a demonstration by selecting from a plurality of demonstrations that indicate display modes different from usual stop motion of the special pattern, a predictive image determination for determining a predictive image by selecting from a Plurality of predictive images representing expectation degrees for appearance of the specified game state, a display for displaying the special pattern, the demonstration and the predictive image determined by the special pattern determination, the demonstration determination and the predictive image determination, respectively; and a display controller for controlling the display to indicate the predictive image determined by the predictive image determination, then to indicate the demonstration determined by the demonstration determination and to indicate the special pattern determined by the special pattern determination, wherein each of the plurality of demonstrations represents an expectation degree for appearance of the specified game state, the expectation degree being varied according to a combination of the demonstration and the predictive image. A player expects appearance of a special pattern with the expectation degree represented by the predictive image on looking at the predictive image firstly indicated, and then expects appearance of a special pattern with the expectation degree represented by the demonstration on looking at the demonstration which is thereafter indicated. The expectation degree of the demonstration is not always identical because it is varied depending on the combination of the demonstration and the predictive image indicated just before.

An electronic amusement device and a method for operating the device are disclosed. In accordance with the present invention, a slot machine server controls a secondary game of chance played at a client slot machine. The server receives a player identifier corresponding to a player and a client identifier corresponding to a client slot machine. The server retrieves registration data relating to a secondary game of chance corresponding to the player identifier and the client identifier. The server further receives an outcome from the client slot machine and analyzes the outcome based on game requirements associated with the secondary game of chance, thereby determining whether the outcome satisfies at least one of the game requirements. Once all of the game requirements have been satisfied, the server updates a session status indicating the completion of the game requirements.

The present invention includes an apparatus and method for a gaming device having a bonus game that provides a player with a primary set of reel symbols having a primary probability of winning and a secondary set of reel symbols having a secondary probability of winning, where the secondary probability of winning is greater than the primary probability of winning.

An electronic gambling unit for allowing a user to play a main gambling game and a bonus round game, and for dispensing value to the user at the conclusion of the bonus round game, may generally include a display unit capable of generating color images or other display mechanism capable of displaying symbols associated with the main gambling game and the bonus round game. The electronic gambling unit may further include an input device that allows the user to make a plurality of input selections, a currency-accepting mechanism capable of allowing the user to deposit a medium of currency, a value-dispensing mechanism capable of dispensing value to the user, and a controller operatively coupled to the display unit, the input device, the currency-accepting mechanism, and the value-dispensing mechanism. The controller may include a processor and a memory operatively coupled to the processor.

The present invention comprises an intelligent gaming system that includes a game engine, simulation engine, and, in certain embodiments, a static evaluator. Embodiments of the invention include an intelligent, poker playing slot machine that allows a user to play poker for money against one or more intelligent, simulated opponents. In one embodiment, the invention generates card playing strategies by analyzing the expected return to players of a game. In one embodiment, a multi-dimensional model is used to represent possible strategies that may be used by each player participating in a card game. Each axis (dimension) of the model represents a distribution of a player's possible hands. Points along a player's distribution axis divide each axis into a number of segments. Each segment has associated with it an action sequence to be undertaken by the player with hands that fall within the segment. The dividing points delineate dividing points between different action sequences. The model is divided into separate portions each corresponding to an outcome determined by the action sequences and hand strengths for each player applicable to the portion. An expected return expression is generated by multiplying the outcome for each portion by the size of the portion, and adding together the resulting products. The location of the dividing points that result in the maximum expected return is determined by taking partial derivatives of the expected return function with respect to each variable, and setting them equal to zero. The result is a set of simultaneous equations that are solved to obtain values for each dividing point. The values for the optimized dividing points define optimized card playing strategies.

A sensing system for determining the rank and suit of playing cards is disclosed. The system includes a sensing module capable of reading a line of data from a printed image, a position sensor and a hardware component that combines the signals from the sensing module and position sensor, converts the signal to binary values and compares the converted signal to stored signals. The comparisons are correlated to identify card rank and Suit. The system can be used in a playing card delivery shoe used to control the game of baccarat. The shoe may be a customary dealing shoe equipped with a sensing module, or may be a mechanized shoe. The mechanized shoe may comprise a) an area for receiving a first set of playing cards useful in the play of the casino table card game of baccarat; b) first card mover that moves playing cards from the first set to a playing card staging area wherein at least one playing card is staged in an order by which playing cards are removed from the first set of and moved to the playing card staging area; c) second playing card mover that moves playing cards from the playing card staging area to a delivery area wherein playing cards removed from the staging area to the delivery shoe are moved in the same order by which playing cards were removed from the first set of playing cards and moved to the playing card staging area; and d) playing card reading sensors that read at least one playing card value of each playing card separately after each playing card has been removed from the area for receiving the first set of playing cards and before removal from the playing card delivery area One exemplary sensing system is a CIS line scanning system with an associated card position sensor and a FPGA hardware element.