System and method for personal wagering

• US 20080039192A1
• Filed: 10/17/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Steven Laut
• Original Assignee: Steven Laut
• Inventors: Laut, Steven
• Granted Patent: US 8,221,225 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/25
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

A method and a system to provide a medium for facilitating personal wagering for sporting or non-sporting events. Users wager against each other for events. Users can make their own odds and handicaps. Users can wager for property, goods, services, or items with non-monetary value. Alerts are automatically distributed to users informing them of available wager offers. Only users are responsible for completing the wager.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of servers coupled to a wide-area network having a plurality of wager content stored in at least one memory device;

a plurality of users that communicate with the wide-area network over a communications medium, the plurality of users having pre-selected event preferences;

the plurality of users each having a hyperlink browser to send HTTP requests to the plurality of servers and to render wager content returned in response to the HTTP requests;

wherein the plurality of servers select wager content in response to the HTTP requests depending on the pre-selected event preferences of the plurality of users, new events are added to a wager event list based on a poll, and at least one user wagers against at least one other user in a personal wager.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each user pre-selects a price range for offered wagers, and the returned wager content is within the pre-selected price range, and each user selects wagering amount limits and lost wagers limits.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein a wager can be accepted after an event has begun.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the wager is for goods, services, property, or a personal service, and only the at least one user and the at least one other user are responsible for completing the wager.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of users receive alerts containing targeted new wager offers and targeted advertising,

wherein the targeted advertising is selected from a database based on one of a user'"'"'s location, previous wagers, preferences, endorsers/sponsors of preferred athlete(s), team(s), event(s) or celebrity, polls, and what is wagered.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the hyperlink browser runs on one of a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a personal computer (PC), a palm computer, and a notebook computer.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein payments and non-payments of wagers effect user reputations.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of users wager against one another for an event in a wager pool.

9. A method comprising:

making a wager offer for an event by a first user on a website;

alerting users available for acceptance of the wager offer by email;

receiving a wager acceptance from a second user;

determining a winner between the first user and the second user based on an outcome of the event; and

alerting the first user and the second user of the winner,

wherein the first user chooses one of odds and points to include in the wager offer, and the alerting users available for acceptance is based on pre-selected event and wager preferences.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

displaying wager statistics for the first user and the second user on a display,

wherein the wager statistics are displayed in a hyperlink browser that runs on one of a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a personal computer (PC), a palm computer, and a notebook computer.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

maintaining top trends for offered wagers,

maintaining user wagering trends, and

adding an event to an event listing,

wherein the user wagering trends are used to control user wagering, and events are added to the event listing based on user polls.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the second user pre-selects a price range and event preferences for wager offers, and the second user receives an alert for the wager offer when the wager offer is within the pre-selected price range and for the event preferences, and the first user and the second user each selects wagering amount limits and lost wagers limits.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein a losing user of a wager directly transfers one of goods, services, a certificate for either goods or services, currency, property, credits, photos, artwork, and fictional items to a winning user of the wager.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein one of the first user and the second user choose one of odds and a handicap to give to the other user, and payments and non-payments of wagers effect user reputations on the website.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein a user transfers a wager amount to an agent and the agent makes a wager for the user.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the wager event is a wager pool.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein alerting users available for acceptance of the wager offer is made by displaying an alert on a webpage, and alerting the first user and the second user of the winner is made by one of text and video.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein the first user and the second user receive alerts containing targeted new wager offers and targeted advertising,

wherein the targeted advertising is selected from a database based on one of a user'"'"'s location, previous wagers, preferences, endorsers/sponsors of preferred athlete(s), team(s), event(s) or celebrity, wager value, user polls, and what is wagered.

19. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to:

alert users of a wager offer from a first user on a website via email;

receive notification of acceptance of the wager offer from a second user;

determine a winner between the first user and the second user based on an outcome of the event; and

alert the winner,

wherein the second user pre-selects a price range and event preferences for wager offers, and the second user receives an alert for the wager offer when the wager offer is within the pre-selected price range and for the event preferences, and the first user and the second user each selects wagering amount limits and lost wagers limits.

20. The machine-accessible medium of claim 19, wherein a losing user of a wager directly transfers one of goods, services, a certificate for either goods or services, currency, fictional items, photos, artwork, and credits to a winning user of the wager, and payments and non-payments of wagers effect user reputations on the website.

21. The machine-accessible medium of claim 19, wherein the first user and the second user receive alerts containing targeted new wager offers and targeted advertising,

wherein the targeted advertising is selected from a database based on one of a user'"'"'s location, previous wagers, preferences, endorsers/sponsors of preferred athlete(s), team(s), event(s) or celebrity, wager value, user polls, and what is wagered.