Regulated gaming - agile media player for controlling games

Abstract

A method for agile downloading and controlling regulated games in a distributed gaming system, the games being selected from a large library of certified games. A preferred embodiment of the method is a plug-in for the ubiquitous personal media player whereby the regulated games distributed on CD-ROM are catalogued in the media library through a “rip-like” operation and are downloaded to the gaming machines through a “sync-like” operation much like for downloading music, photos and movies to an iPod®. Preventing execution of non authorized games is enforced in the gaming machine through software restriction policy (SRP) much like digital right media (DRM) prevents listening or viewing illegal media files. Other media content such as promotional photos, videos and audio may be downloaded and controlled through the same casino media player. A free-text entry selection accelerator enables rapid selection of media titles, game titles and target gaming machines according to a wide range of indexed embedded information and metadata. Operators already acquainted with downloading media content to portable media player such as the Apple iPod®, Microsoft Zune® and other digital music players will feel immediately at ease with downloading regulated gaming content to gaming machines via the same paradigm, from a control workstation in the central computer room or directly at any location on the floor using a mobile PC.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.