US 8,025,561 B2Granted

Gaming system and method for providing bingo wins

AssigneeIgt

InventorsChristopher D. Reddicks, Connie L. Thome

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A gaming system includes a plurality of gaming machines and a continual game sequence including a plurality of symbols and a plurality of sessions. Each session includes a number of games. At the beginning of a game sequence, the gaming system draws all of the symbols. When the number of games of the current session has been played without a winner, the game sequence proceeds to the next session. For each session, the gaming system activates a number of the drawn symbols based on the session number. Upon player activation, a gaming machine generates a symbol subset, marking each symbol in the subset which matches the activated symbols. If the marked symbols match a predetermined pattern, the gaming system provides an award for a player, basing the award on an award pool amount and the session number. As the session number increases, the award provided to the player decreases.

Claims30

Dependent claims

A gaming system comprising:

a controller;
and
a plurality of gaming devices configured to operate with the controller to:
(a) provide a designated game sequence including a plurality of bingo games, each of said bingo games including at least one bingo card, each bingo card having a subset of bingo symbols arranged in a pattern selected and from a set of a plurality of different bingo symbols;
and
(b) for the plurality of bingo games at each of the plurality of gaming devices in the designated game sequence:
(i) determine the total number of bingo games previously played in the designated game sequence on all of the plurality of gaming devices;
(ii) determine a session number based upon the total number of bingo games previously played on all of the plurality of gaming devices in the designated game sequence;
(iii) activate a predetermined number of bingo symbols from the set of bingo symbols based on the determined session number;
(iv) for each bingo card of the bingo game, compare the subset of bingo symbols of the bingo card to a plurality but not all of the activated plurality of bingo symbols to determine if the bingo card includes a primary bingo winning pattern of the plurality of activated bingo symbols, and if so, provide a primary bingo award to a player associated with said bingo card;
and
(v) additionally, for each bingo card of the bingo game, compare the subset of bingo symbols of the bingo card to the activated predetermined number of bingo symbols to determine if the bingo card includes a secondary bingo winning pattern of the associated bingo symbols which is different from the primary bingo winning pattern, and if so, provide a secondary bingo award to a secondary player associated with said bingo card, wherein an amount of the secondary bingo award is based on the session number.

9 more elements

A gaming system comprising:

a controller;
and
a plurality of gaming devices configured to operate with the controller to:
(a) provide a designated game sequence including a plurality of bingo games, each of said bingo games including at least one bingo card, each bingo card having a subset of bingo symbols arranged in a pattern and selected from a set of a plurality of different bingo symbols;
and
(b) for the plurality of bingo games at each of the plurality of gaming devices in the designated game sequence:
(i) determine the total number of bingo games previously played in the designated game sequence on all of the plurality of gaming devices;
(ii) activate a predetermined number of bingo symbols from the set of bingo symbols based on the total number of previously played bingo games on all of the plurality of gaming devices;
(iii) for each bingo card of the bingo game, compare the subset of bingo symbols of the bingo card to a plurality but not all of the activated plurality of bingo symbols to determine if the bingo card includes a primary bingo winning pattern of the plurality of activated bingo symbols, and if so, provide a primary bingo award to a player associated with said bingo card;
and
(v) additionally, for each bingo card of the bingo game, compare the subset of bingo symbols of the bingo card to the activated predetermined number of bingo symbols to determine if the bingo card includes a secondary bingo winning pattern of the associated bingo symbols which is different from the primary bingo winning pattern, and if so, provide a secondary bingo award to a secondary player associated with said bingo card, wherein an amount of the secondary bingo award is based on the number of previously played bingo games.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.