Method and system for managing probability of an outcome in a random generation event

• US 8,308,551 B2
• Filed: 11/18/2011
• Issued: 11/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Scientific Games LLC (Light & Wonder Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Scientific Games International Incorporated (Scientific Games Corporation)
• Inventors: Bennett, Joseph W. III, Holton, Charles, Safaei, Aman, Boykin, Charles
• Primary Examiner(s): Suhol, Dmitry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Duffy, David
• Application Number:
  US13/299,662
• Publication Number:
  US 20120064960A1
• Time in Patent Office: 361 Days
• Field of Search: 463 16- 19, 463/21, 463/22
• US Class Current: 463/21
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/329 Regular and instant lottery, e.g. electronic scratch cards

Abstract

A lottery game system and methodology involves, for each play of the game, a player choosing a number of player indicia from a field of the indicia. A subset of the indicia is randomly generated, and the player'"'"'s indicia is compared to the subset to determine a winning game play. The number of indicia in the subsets is varied between different game plays such that a blend of the winning probabilities for each subset for all of the game plays produces a desired overall winning probability.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of conducting a probability-based lottery game with a computer system having instruction files to implement the lottery game as follows:

for each play of the lottery game, providing for a player to choose a number of player indicia from a total field of the indicia, wherein the player indicia is compared to a randomly generated subset of X number of indicia from the total field of the indicia to determine whether the game play is a winning play; and

establishing a desired overall winning probability for the game plays by varying the number X of indicia in the subsets between different game plays such that a blend of the winning probabilities for each number X for all of the game plays produces the desired overall winning probability.

2. The method as in claim 1, wherein the number X of indicia in the subsets is less than the number of indicia in the total field, and the number of player indicia is less than the number X of indicia in the subsets.

3. The method as in claim 1, wherein the step of establishing the desired overall winning probability comprises establishing a deck of indicia subset records containing a plurality of sets of records (X1, X2, . . . ) designating a respective number (X1, X2, . . . ) of indicia in the subsets, and wherein the blend of different sets of records having different X numbers is computed to achieve the overall desired winning probability for the game.

4. The method as in claim 3, wherein the records in the first deck are randomly shuffled and assigned sequentially to each game play.

5. The method as in claim 4, wherein the total number of records in the first deck corresponds to the total number of game plays designated for the lottery game.

6. The method as in claim 3, wherein the step of assigning a payout to each winning game play comprises establishing a deck of payout records, with the number of records in the payout deck corresponding to the expected number of winning game plays as a function of the overall winning probability of the game, each of the records in the payout deck designating a prize payout such that a totality of the payouts corresponds to the desired percentage payout schedule, and assigning one of the records in the payout deck to each of the game plays designated as a winning game play.

7. The method as in claim 6, wherein the records in the payout deck are randomly shuffled and assigned sequentially to the winning game plays.

8. The method as in claim 7, wherein the game includes multiple winning game play combinations, and further comprising establishing additional payout decks for each combination, and distributing the prize payout over all of the payout decks so as to achieve the desired percentage payout schedule for all of the possible winning combinations.

9. The method as in claim 1, further comprising assigning a payout to each winning game play as a function of a predefined overall percentage payout for the game and the overall winning probability such that the payout for all expected winning game plays achieves the percentage payout.

10. The method as in claim 1, wherein the probability-based lottery game is conducted as an online lottery game.