SYSTEM, METHOD, AND APPARATUS FOR DETECTING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR OF A WAGERING GAME MACHINE

• US 20060205488A1
• Filed: 12/21/2005
• Published: 09/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LNW Gaming Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Bally Gaming Incorporated (Scientific Games Corporation)
• Inventors: Gagner, Mark B., Bytnar, Michael R., Kloes, Robertus A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,974,304 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/29
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3234 about the performance of a gaming system, e.g. revenue, diagnosis of the gaming system
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3269 Timing aspects of game play, e.g. blocking/halting the operation of a gaming machine

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for detecting abnormal behavior of a wagering game machine are described herein. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving an operating characteristic value, wherein the operating characteristic value indicates a value of an operating characteristic of a wagering game machine and based on a set of previous operating characteristic values of the operating characteristic, determining whether the operating characteristic value is within a normal operating range. In the embodiment the method also includes performing a fault operation if the operating characteristic value is not within the normal operating range.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an operating characteristic value, wherein the operating characteristic value indicates a value of an operating characteristic of a wagering game machine;

based on a set of previous operating characteristic values of the operating characteristic, determining whether the operating characteristic value is within a normal operating range; and

if the operating characteristic value is not within the normal operating range, performing a fault operation.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

adding the operating characteristic value to the set of previous operating characteristic values.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault operation is selected from a set of fault operations, and wherein the fault operation selection is based on a confidence factor associated with the operating characteristic.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the confidence factor is increased after determining the characteristic value is within the normal behavior range.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the fault operation is selected from the group consisting of notifying casino security, recording a message in a message log, disabling the wagering game machine, and presenting a message to a display device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the operating characteristic can be processor utilization, memory utilization, absence of a process, presence of a process, sockets opened, ports opened, or message activity.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the wagering game machine is one of a homogeneous set of wagering game machines.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the set of previous operating characteristic values include values from ones of the homogeneous set of wagering game machines.

9. A method comprising:

receive a request for an operating characteristic value, wherein the operating characteristic value indicates a value of an operating characteristic of a wagering game machine at a particular time; and

transmitting the operating characteristic value, wherein the operating characteristic value can be used for determining whether the operating characteristic value is within a range of normal behavior.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the wagering game machine is one of a homogeneous set of wagering game machines.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising transmitting another operating characteristic value of the operating characteristic.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the other operating characteristic value indicates another value of the operating characteristic of the wagering game machine at another time.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the wagering game machine stores the operating characteristic value and the other operating characteristic value at least until receiving the request.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a communication indicating that an operating characteristic value is not within a normal behavior range; and

in response to the communication, entering the wagering game machine in an unplayable state.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining whether a periodic signal has been received, wherein the periodic signal indicates whether the operating characteristic value is within a normal behavior range; and

if the periodic enabling signal has not been received, entering the wagering game machine in an unplayable state.

16. An apparatus comprising:

a monitoring module to monitor operating characteristics of ones of a set of homogeneous wagering game machines;

a characterization module to determine whether values of the operating characteristics are within normal behavior ranges, wherein the determination is based on one or more sets of previous operating characteristic values; and

a fault notification module to perform a fault operation in response to a determination that one of the operating characteristic values is outside one of the normal behavior ranges.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, the determination is performed by using statistical analysis, fuzzy logic, adaptive neural networks, or data mining.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the operating characteristics are selected from the group consisting of identities of processes executing on the wagering game machine, processor utilization of the processes executing on the wagering game machine, memory utilization of the processes executing on the wagering game machine, and files open for the processes executing on the wagering game machine.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the fault operation is selected from a set of fault operations, and wherein the selection is based on a confidence factor.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the previous operating characteristic values were obtained in a testing environment.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the testing environment is a secure testing environment, and wherein all operating characteristic values obtained in the secure testing environment are used to build a database of operating characteristic values within a range of normal behavior.

22. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the determination of whether values of the operating characteristics are within normal behavior ranges includes notifying a human operator of a possible fault and receiving input from the operator indicating whether the conditions are within the normal behavior ranges, and wherein based on the input, updating the of previous operating characteristic values.

23. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the previous operating characteristic values were obtained in a casino environment.

24. A system comprising:

a first set of homogeneous wagering game machines to transmit a second set of operating characteristic values, wherein ones of the second set indicate values of operating characteristics of ones of the first set;

a data store to store other values of the operating characteristics; and

a diagnostic controller to determine whether ones of the set are within a predetermined operating range, the determination based on the other values of the operating characteristics.

25. The system of claim 24, the diagnostic controller to perform a fault operation.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the fault operation is selected from the group consisting of notifying casino security, recording a message in a message log, disabling the wagering game machine, and presenting a message to a display device.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the other values are collected in a simulated gaming environment.

28. The system of claim 24, wherein the other values are collected in a casino gaming environment.

29. A machine-readable medium including instructions, which when executed by a machine, perform operations comprising:

receiving an operating characteristic value, wherein the operating characteristic value indicates a value of an operating characteristic of a wagering game machine;

based on a set of previous operating characteristic values of the operating characteristic, determining whether the operating characteristic value is within a normal behavior range; and

if the operating characteristic value is not within the normal behavior range, performing a fault operation.

30. The machine-readable medium of claim 29, the operations further comprising:

adding the operating characteristic value to the set of previous operating characteristic values.

31. The machine-readable medium of claim 29, wherein the fault operation is selected from a set of fault operations, and wherein the fault operation selection is based on a confidence factor associated with the operating characteristic.

32. The machine-readable medium of claim 31, wherein the confidence factor is increased after determining the characteristic value is within the normal behavior range.

33. The machine-readable medium of claim 29, wherein the fault operation is selected from the group consisting of notifying casino security, recording a message in a message log, disabling the wagering game machine, and presenting a message to a display device.

34. The machine-readable medium of claim 29, wherein the operating characteristic can be processor utilization, memory utilization, absence of a process, presence of a process, sockets opened, ports opened, or message activity.

35. The machine-readable medium of claim 29, wherein the wagering game machine is one of a homogeneous set of wagering game machines.

36. The machine-readable medium of claim 35, wherein the set of previous operating characteristic values include values from ones of the homogeneous set of wagering game machines.