Gaming Method, System and Apparatus Incorporating Personalized Guaranteed Prize Structure

Abstract

The present invention facilitates new gaming opportunities by providing a personalized guaranteed value prize structure tied to a gaming player identifier. The identifier is associated with one or more virtual books of tickets, wherein the book(s) of tickets include a guaranteed prize structure that can provide a pre-determined value of winning prize tickets among all of the tickets therein. In one embodiment of the present invention, the prize structure implements a losing run limit such that no more than a pre-determined number of losing tickets in a row are experienced by the player. Once a virtual book of tickets is assigned, the player can reveal the results using various different terminals, including, for example, retailer terminals, home computers and mobile communications devices. The tickets and their values can be populated in each book in advance or dynamically as the user plays each ticket.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61 / 122,179, filed Dec. 12, 2008, entitled “System, Device and Method for Paperless Wagering and Payment of Winnings,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Instant lottery tickets issued by lottery service providers and / or lottery ticket manufacturers permit various levels of winning according to a pre-defined prize structure. The prize structure usually includes high-tier winning tickets (e.g., redemption value of $600 and up), mid-tier winning tickets (e.g., redemption value of between $26 and $599 inclusive), low-tier winning tickets (e.g., redemption value of $25 and below) and losing tickets with no redemption (i.e., zero) value. Depending upon the structure, fewer or additional tiers may also exist. The winning tickets are randomly dispersed throughout a pool of tickets, with each pool of tickets b...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]The present invention provides a guaranteed prize structure to online instant tickets, with a wide variety of implementations. The present invention can incorporate the guaranteed prize structure on a per distributor level, a per retailer level, a per store level, a per terminal level, a personal level, or any other level (e.g., office groups, etc.). In doing so, the present invention can enhance the gaming experience for participants while also allowing the lottery operator or retailer to gather meaningful information about their market and customers. The guaranteed prize structure can incorporate a guaranteed value prize structure, a losing run limit or both.

Problems solved by technology

For individual lottery ticket players, there is never any guarantee that any given player will receive a winning ticket or multiple winning tickets for every group of tickets of a certain size purchased, unless an entire book of tickets is purchased.

If a player knows that each time the player purchases a losing ticket, he or she has increased the probability of the next ticket being a winner (via the losing run limit), then he or she may be more apt to play again, which could result in a greater number of online plays and ticket sales.

Thus, the player cannot be guaranteed to receive low end prizes pursuant to any required prize structure and there are no losing run limits with online instant tickets.

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