US 10,593,152 B1Granted

Gaming machine and method for evaluating player reactions

AssigneeAristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited

InventorGregory Paul Schwartz

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Abstract

An electronic gaming machine includes a display, a digital camera device, a credit input mechanism, and a processor programmed to perform operations comprising: (i) receiving, from the digital camera device, a digital image of the player; (ii) determining an emotional state of the player by performing facial expression analysis on the digital image; (iii) determining an emotion level of the player by categorizing the emotional state of the player based on the determined emotional state, the categorizing includes a first state representing a positive emotional level and a second state representing another emotional level; (iv) determining that the emotional level is the other emotional level; and (v) automatically initiating a game session action during the game play session, the game session action is configured to cause the player to transition to the positive emotional level.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An electronic gaming machine comprising:

a cabinet;
a display device configured to display visual aspects of a wagering game;
a digital camera device integrated into the cabinet and configured to capture digital image data of a player of the electronic gaming machine during a game play session of a wagering game;
a credit input mechanism including at least one of a card reader, a ticket reader, a bill acceptor, and a coin input mechanism, the credit input mechanism configured to receive a credit wager;
a storage medium having instructions stored thereon;
and
a game controller enclosed by the cabinet and configured to execute instructions stored in a tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium, which, when executed by the game controller, cause the game controller to at least:
transmit an instruction to the digital camera device to initiate capturing of an initial digital image of the player;
receive, from the digital camera device, the initial digital image of the player over a communications network coupling the digital camera device and the game controller;
submit the initial digital image as input to a preliminary image processor software module, the preliminary images processor is configured to output a cropped facial image of the player by identifying a facial position of a face of the player within the initial digital image and cropping the initial digital image around the identified facial position;
in response to output of the cropped facial image, submit the cropped facial image to an emotion analysis software module, the emotion analysis software module is configured to evaluate the cropped facial image using facial expression analysis techniques to determine a current emotional state of the player;
determine an emotional level of the player by categorizing the emotional state of the player output by the emotion analysis software module, the categorizing includes a first state representing a positive emotional level and a second state representing another emotional level;
and
automatically initiate a game session action at the electronic gaming machine and during the game play session when the determined emotional level is the other emotional level, the game session action is configured to cause the player to transition to the positive emotional level.

11 more elements

A method of analyzing facial expressions of a player, the method being implemented on an electronic gaming machine, the electronic gaming machine including at least one processor in communication with at least one memory device, a digital camera device configured to capture digital image data of the player during a game play session of a wagering game, and with a display, the method comprising:

transmitting an instruction to the digital camera device to initiate capturing of an initial digital image of the player over a communications network coupling the digital camera device and the game controller;
receiving, from the digital camera device, the initial digital image of the player over the communications network;
submitting the initial digital image as input to a preliminary image processor software module, the preliminary image processor is configured to output a cropped facial image of the player by identifying a facial position of a face of the player within the initial digital image and cropping the initial digital image around the identified facial position;
in response to the outputting of the cropped facial image, submit the cropped facial image to an emotion analysis software module, the emotion analysis software module is configured to evaluate the cropped facial image using facial expression analysis techniques to determine a current emotional state of the player;
determining an emotional level of the player by categorizing the emotional state of the player output by the emotion analysis software module, the categorizing includes a first state representing a positive emotional level and a second state representing another emotional level;
automatically initiating a game session action at the electronic gaming machine and during the game play session when the determined emotional level is the other emotional level, the game session action is configured to cause the player to transition to the positive emotional level.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.