Systems and methods for administration of non-wagering account associated with multiple gaming environments
AssigneeSightline Interactive LLC
InventorsKirk E. Sanford, Thomas M. Sears, Omer Sattar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A transaction facilitation system is disclosed that is configured to affect crediting and debiting of gaming accounts for two or more gaming environments and structured to communicate with an issuing financial institution of a stored value account to affect crediting and debiting of the stored value accounts. The two or more gaming environments can be members of an alliance of gaming environments that are associated with the stored value account. Financial transactions using the stored value account can be used for customer relationship purposes.
Claims16
A computer-based method, the method performed by one or more computing devices the method comprising:
- subsequent to an enrolling of a player into loyalty programs of each of a plurality of gaming environments, receiving a player identifier for the player, wherein the player identifier is a unique player identifier issued to the player and associated with the loyalty program of a current gaming environment and a gaming account of the current gaming environment having a balance, the gaming account maintained by a casino computing system of the gaming environment;
- based at least partially on the player identifier, identifying a stored value account of the player, wherein funds held in the stored value account can be selectively transferred to any of a plurality of gaming accounts at any of a plurality of different gaming environments, wherein enrollment of the player into the loyalty program at each of the gaming environments associates the player with a unique player identifier for each of the gaming environments, wherein each of the unique player identifiers is linked to the same stored value account, wherein the plurality of gaming environments is an alliance of gaming environments that are each affiliated with the stored value account, and wherein the plurality of gaming environments comprises the current gaming environment;
- receiving a funding instruction, wherein the funding instruction does not identify the stored value account, and wherein the funding instruction identifies a balance amount to be transferred from the stored valued account to the gaming account of the current gaming environment maintained by the casino computing system of the gaming environment;
- and
- causing a decrease of a balance of the stored value account and an increase of the balance of the gaming account of the current gaming environment maintained by the casino computing system of the gaming environment via closed-loop transactions.
A computer-based method of funding at least one of a plurality of gaming accounts that are each associated with a respective gaming environment and maintained by an associated casino computing system of the respective gaming environment, wherein each of the respective gaming environments is associated with an alliance of gaming environments, wherein each of the respective gaming environments is associated with a stored value account of a player, wherein the stored value account is associated with each of a plurality of unique player identifiers, wherein each of the plurality of unique player identifiers is associated with a respective gaming environment, the method comprising:
- receiving a load request, wherein the load request comprises one of the plurality of unique player identifiers and a request to fund a gaming account with player funds held by a stored value account, wherein the gaming account has a balance amount, wherein the gaming account is associated with one of the gaming environments associated with the alliance of gaming environments, and wherein the load request does not identify the stored value account;
- and
- causing an increase of the balance amount of the gaming account based on an amount of funds requested in the load request via closed-loop transactions.
A gaming account funding system, comprising:
- a stored value account maintaining a balance of funds on behalf of a player;
- a first gaming account of a first gaming environment to hold funds for the player, the first gaming account maintained by a first casino computing system of the first gaming environment;
- a first loyalty account assigned to the player, wherein the first loyalty account is maintained by a first customer management system having a first processor;
- a second gaming account of a second gaming environment to hold funds for the player, the second gaming account maintained by a second casino computing system of the second gaming environment, wherein the first casino computing system is different from the second casino computing system;
- a second loyalty account assigned to the player, wherein the second loyalty account is maintained by a second customer management system having a second processor, wherein the first gaming environment and the second gaming environment are members of an alliance of gaming environments;
- and
- at least one computing device comprising a third processor and a non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, which when executed by the third processor, cause the third processor to:
- associate the first loyalty account assigned to the player with the stored value account;
- associate the second loyalty account assigned to the player with the stored value account;
- and
- based on a funding command provided by the player through an application executing on a remote computing device, selectively increase funds in at least one of the first gaming account or the second gaming account and decrease funds held by the stored value account via closed-loop transactions, wherein the funding command comprises information identifying player credentials, a gaming environment identifier, and an amount of funds to be transferred, and wherein the funding command does not identify the stored value account.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.