Universal game server

• US 20050209007A1
• Filed: 05/16/2005
• Published: 09/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IGT (International Game Technology)
• Original Assignee: Cyberview Technology, Inc. (International Game Technology)
• Inventors: Gatto, Jean-Marie, Brunet De Courssou, Thierry, Beney, Pierre-Jean
• Granted Patent: US 8,920,242 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3223 Architectural aspects of a gaming system, e.g. internal configuration, master/slave, wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3225 Data transfer within a gaming system, e.g. data sent between gaming machines and users
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3241 Security aspects of a gaming system, e.g. detecting cheating, device integrity, surveillance computer security G06F21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3244 Payment aspects of a gaming system, e.g. payment schemes, setting payout ratio, bonus or consolation prizes

Abstract

A trusted disaster tolerant system architecture supporting concurrently a number of distributed online gaming operations such as slip-scan lottery, video lottery, fixed odd betting terminals, Internet gaming, and interactive TV. A personality front end resolves the peculiarities of the various client systems before submitting the relevant transactional payload to a trusted transactional cache. A universal game random generator may be used either at the central game server or at each individual gaming machine, thus conferring a significant trust to the entire estate of gaming machines fitted with the game random generator. An auditable trusted log allows to rapidly resolve any dispute. The instant-draw model and the differed-draw model are supported. The system may advantageously be used in casino environments.

Claims

1-27. -27. (canceled)

28. An online gaming system, comprising:

a plurality of gaming machines, each of the plurality of gaming machines being configured to generate and send an inbound transaction packet that includes an inbound transaction payload across at least one of a plurality of communication networks according to one of a plurality of communication protocols;

at least one central server coupled to the plurality of communication networks and to each of the at least one central servers, the at least one central server including;

at least one transaction engine configured to process inbound transaction payloads to generate corresponding outbound transaction payloads;

a personality front end, the personality front end being configured to interface with each of the plurality of communication networks to receive inbound transaction packets from the plurality of gaming machines, to extract the inbound transaction payloads from the received inbound transaction packets, to submit the extracted inbound payloads to the at least one transaction engine, to generate outbound transaction packets that include the corresponding outbound transaction payloads and to send the generated outbound transaction packets to a selected one of the plurality of gaming machines.

29. The online gaming system according to claim 28, wherein the inbound transaction payload comprises at least one of a gaming machine ID, a user/player ID, a transaction GUID, a terminal originating/return address, a game ID, a game bet, and an amount wagered.

30. The online gaming system according to claim 28, wherein the personality front end is further configured to transcode specific transaction payloads produced by the plurality of gaming terminals into generic transaction payloads.

31. The online gaming system according to claim 28, wherein the plurality of communication networks include at least one of dial-up, X25, Frame Relay, leased line, Internet and VPN.

32. The online gaming system according to claim 28, wherein said one of the plurality of communication protocols is selected from one of proprietary, X25, TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, XML and SOAP protocols.

33-62. -62. (canceled)