Universal game server

• US 8,657,685 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2007
• Issued: 02/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IGT (International Game Technology)
• Original Assignee: IGT (International Game Technology)
• Inventors: Gatto, Jean-Marie, Brunet de Courssou, Thierry, Beney, Pierre-Jean
• Primary Examiner(s): Suhol, Dmitry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Liddle, Jay Trent
• Application Number:
  US11/735,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20070184905A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,507 Days
• Field of Search: 463/29, 463/40, 463/42, 718/105
• 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. An online gaming system, comprising:

a communication network;

at least two multiple-site geographically dispersed central servers, each of the at least two geographically dispersed central servers being coupled to the communication network; and

at least two gaming machines, each of the at least two gaming machines being coupled to the communication network and being configured to carry out a game transaction for each game played, the at least two gaming machines being configured to carry out load balancing when committing the game transactions to the at least two geographically dispersed central servers over the communication network, the load balancing including each gaming machine initially selecting only one of the at least two geographically dispersed central servers to which to commit the game transaction,

wherein as between the at least two geographically dispersed central servers and the at least two gaming machines, the at least two gaming machines are each configured to construct a first synchronization log, during recovery from central server or network communication errors occurring during the game transactions, the first synchronization logs of each of the at least two gaming machines includes identifiers of any transactions that were not acknowledged by a non-responding central server to which the game transactions were committed, in response to the selected one of the at least two geographically dispersed central servers being inoperative or unreachable, the at least two gaming machines are further configured to notify a responding central server to build a second synchronization log including transaction data not received by the non-responding central server, when the non-responding central server becomes operational, the responding central server contacts the non-responding central server using a synchronization link and forwards all the transaction data not received by the non-responding central server thereto, and a corresponding one of the at least two gaming machines uses the first synchronization log to re-commit the transactions that were not acknowledged by the non-responding central server.

2. The online gaming system according to claim 1, wherein the communication network is the Internet and wherein a protocol to transport a payload of each game transaction is UDP.

3. The online gaming system according to claim 1, wherein the at least two central servers and the at least two gaming machines are configured to support instant-draw and deferred-draw of random events.

4. The online gaming system according to claim 1, wherein each of the at least two geographically dispersed central servers each further comprise a trusted transactional cache, the trusted transactional cache being configured to process each committed game transaction received directly and independently from each of the at least one gaming machine, and to provide real time persistent storage and logging of aspects of each committed game transaction.

5. The online gaming system of claim 4, wherein each of the at least two gaming machines is configured to record, in the first synchronization log, the identifiers of the transactions that were not acknowledged by the non-responding server after a predetermined timeout, such that the first synchronization log can be used to by the corresponding one of the at least two gaming machines for sending the transactions that were not acknowledged to the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding server.

6. The online gaming system according to claim 5, wherein the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding server is further configured to be synchronized by receiving the transactions that were not acknowledged directly from the corresponding one of the at least two gaming machines subsequent to communication being re-established therewith.

7. The online gaming system according to claim 5, wherein each trusted transactional cache includes a synchronization engine and wherein the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding server is further configured to be synchronized by receiving the transaction data not received by the non-responding server directly from the synchronization engine of a trusted transactional cache of the responding server.

8. The online gaming system according to claim 1, wherein the at least two geographically dispersed central servers each further comprise at least one of a trusted transactional cache, a business server and a logistic support server.

9. The online gaming system of claim 1 wherein, as between the at least two geographically dispersed central servers and the at least two gaming machines, the at least two gaming machines are configured as masters of the game transactions.

10. The online gaming system of claim 1, wherein the synchronization link includes a predetermined network connection.

11. The online gaming system of claim 1, wherein resynchronizing the non-responding server using a synchronization link includes the at least one other of the at least two geographically dispersed central servers attempting to forward the second synchronization log to the non-responding server.

12. An online gaming system, comprising:

a communication network;

a plurality of gaming machines, each of the plurality of gaming machines being configured to carry out game transactions and being coupled to the communication network; and

N multi-site geographically dispersed central servers, wherein N is equal to at least two, each of the N geographically dispersed central servers being coupled to the communication network, selected ones of the plurality of gaming machines being further configured to perform load balancing when committing transactions to the N geographically dispersed central servers, the load balancing including having each gaming machine initially select at least one of the N geographically dispersed central servers to which to commit the game transactions, wherein as between the plurality of gaming machines and the central servers, the plurality of gaming machines are configured as sole masters of game transactions, wherein each of the plurality of gaming machines is configured to construct a first synchronization log, during recovery from central server or network communication errors occurring during the game transactions, the first synchronization logs of each of the plurality of gaming machines includes identifiers of any transactions that were not acknowledged by a non-responding central server to which the game transactions were committed, in response to one of the N geographically dispersed central servers being inoperative or unreachable, the plurality of gaming machines are further configured to notify a responding central server to build a second synchronization log including transaction data not received by the non-responding central server, when the non-responding central server becomes operational, the responding central server contacts the non-responding central server using a synchronization link and forwards all the transaction data not received by the non-responding central server thereto, and a corresponding one of the plurality of gaming machines uses the first synchronization log to re-commit the transactions that were not acknowledged by the non-responding central server to the non-responding central server and at least one other one of the central servers.

13. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein each of the N geographically dispersed central servers is configured to return a game transaction commit acknowledgment to the gaming machine that initiated the transaction commit over the communication network.

14. The online gaming system according to claim 13, wherein the gaming machine acknowledges to the player the validity of the game transaction upon receipt of at least one game transaction commit acknowledgment during a predetermined timeout period following the commit of the game transaction to each of the N geographically dispersed central servers.

15. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein each game transaction committed to each of the N geographically dispersed central servers has an identical inbound game payload comprising at least a selected set of the at least one gaming machine ID, the user/player ID, the transaction QUID, the gaming machine originating/return address, the game ID, the game bet, and the amount wagered.

16. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein the communication network includes the Internet and wherein a protocol to transport a payload of each of the game transactions is UDP.

17. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein the N geographically dispersed central servers and the plurality of gaming machines are configured to support instant-draw and deferred-draw of random events.

18. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein each of the N geographically dispersed central servers each further comprises a trusted transactional cache, the trusted transactional cache being configured to process each committed game transaction, and to provide real time, secure and persistent storage and logging of aspects of each committed game transaction.

19. The online gaming system of claim 18, wherein the first synchronization log is used by a corresponding one of the plurality of gaming machines to send the transactions not acknowledged to the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding central server.

20. The online gaming system according to claim 19, wherein the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding central server is further configured to be synchronized by receiving the transactions not acknowledged directly from the at least one gaming machine subsequent to communication being re-established therewith.

21. The online gaming system according to claim 19, wherein each trusted transactional cache includes a synchronization engine and wherein the trusted transactional cache of the non-responding central server is further configured to be synchronized by receiving the transactions not acknowledged directly from the trusted transactional cache of a responding central server.

22. The online gaming system according to claim 12, wherein each of the N geographically dispersed central servers further comprises at least one of a trusted transactional cache, a business server and a logistic support server.

23. The online gaming system of claim 22, wherein the at least one gaming machine is configured to initiate and terminate the game transaction.

24. The online gaming system of claim 12, wherein each of the plurality of gaming machines is configured to initiate and terminate the game transactions.