Patent Application
20120270631
The described mechanisms and methods relate generally to electronic gaming apparatus and gaming methods including bingo and methods for constructing prize structures as well as bingo determination methods.
In the gaming industry in general and in casino environments as well as internet applications in particular it is desirable to provide gaming systems including bingo apparatus and systems that are attractive for customers to play while providing an acceptable return to the proprietor of the gaming systems. It is also desirable to provide multiplayer card gaming systems that are attractive for customers to play while providing an acceptable return to the proprietor of the gaming systems.
Regarding bingo games, most electronic bingo games are played in a similar manner to conventional bingo games where a player pays for and plays one or more bingo cards. Balls having marks or symbols corresponding to squares on the cards are sequentially drawn, or in the case of electronic systems, randomly generated. The first card in which a predetermined patterns of squares, such as columns, diagonals, rows or corners, is filled by symbols on the drawn balls is the winner. Typically, the prize is paid to the player with the winning card or if two or more cards have one of the predetermined patterns, the prize can be split. There are a number of variations on this approach especially in electronic implementations of bingo. For example, after the initial purchase of one or more cards, the game requires the players to pay a predetermined amount per card for the next ball or series of balls and thus the player has the option of only paying for cards that appear to be close to winning.
However, the bingo games as described above have a number of disadvantages. For example, since the games normally pay out only one large prize to the player having a winning pattern, a player playing a bingo game, especially with a large number of players, can play for a long time without winning anything and hence become discouraged.
Also, a number of problems can arise in implementing the bingo games as described above in an electronic format, or especially in internet based games. For example, since an internet based bingo game can have thousands of players playing a game where in addition each player can have a number of cards, the marking and evaluating each of what can be thousands of cards for a winning bingo pattern after each ball is drawn in a rapid and efficient manner can be a challenge.
Regarding multiplayer poker gaming systems, one approach to such a system involves each player playing on his own terminal or personal computer where under control of a central computer or internet website the players play against each other. The terminals can have displays showing the hands as dealt, winning hands and other game information. The game can be played using the central computer to deal each player a hand from one or more simulated card decks corresponding to casino type games where a dealer deals hands from one or more card decks. However, this approach tends to be effectively limited to about ten players (10 players×5 cards per player=50 cards from a 52 card deck). For such a system with more than ten players, it becomes difficult to construct a prize structure when dealing is done from a single deck or even a combination of multiple decks and especially for internet games which might have thousands of players in a single game. As a result, poker type games with very high payouts based, for example, on the number of players in the game become especially difficult to construct.
One example of an attempt to provide enhanced player appeal is to structure a multiplayer gaming system such that each individual gaming machine includes a set of player controls in which a game such as bingo, keno or poker can be played and a first display for displaying the game as it is played and further includes a second display for displaying the outcome of the game in a different game format. The second display can for example display the outcome and indicate the payout of a bingo game in the form of spinning slot machine reels. Examples of these types of gaming systems are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,322,886 and 7,641,552.
However, the dual game display approach as described above does not address the problem of providing prize structures, especially where one type of game is played and the outcome is displayed in a different game format, such that the prize structures are sufficiently flexible to allow game designers to optimize payoff tables for maximum player appeal while providing a specified return to the game system proprietor.
Described is a method of constructing a bingo prize structure which is particularly useful in a bingo gaming system, in which prizes can be awarded for cards that have a predetermined number or configuration of squares filled but are less than required for a bingo. One advantage of this approach is that pay structures can be constructed for a bingo game that closely replicate other gaming systems, for example, the payoff structure of a spinning reel slot machine.
Also described is a method of constructing an apparatus and method for marking and evaluating or checking each card in a bingo game using a bit marked card technique and vector operations.
Regarding multiplayer card game systems, described is a method of constructing a competitive multiplayer card game, that uses a simulated single deck of cards associated with each player or terminal, where the central game controller deals a player's hand from the deck associated with that player's terminal. Also described are examples of prize structures for use with such multiplayer poker games that provide enhanced prizes to the winning players as well as providing a return to the proprietor of the gaming system.
With respect to dual game displays as well as other gaming systems, a method of constructing prize structures, that are particularly useful in gaming systems having dual game displays, and in particular pay structures that have sufficient granularity such that the outcome or payoff of the game being played, such as poker can closely replicate, for example, the payoff of a spinning reel slot machine and displayed as such.
Also described is an example of a multiplayer video poker game where the results and payoffs for each player can be displayed on a video replica of a spinning wheel slot machine which in turn can use a prize structure constructed with the described method.
In operation, the system controller or server 10 includes a game logic program 56 that among other functions can transmit electronic versions of the bingo cards 34-50 to the player terminals 20-26 for display on the displays 32 and randomly generate or “draw” a sequence of simulated bingo balls such as a ball 58 depicted in
It should be understood that the system shown in
Tables 1-3 below illustrate a prize structure that can be used with bingo gaming systems of the type described above. Generally in this structure, a prize in addition to the bingo prize is awarded for cards that are close to a bingo. For example, if one of the cards 20-26 has four out of five of the squares necessary to form one of the predetermined bingo patterns when a bingo is called, which is termed herein as a “near-bingo,” a prize is awarded to that card. A near-bingo is defined for purposes of this explanation of the concept as a card that lacks one mark of being a Bingo, e.g. it has 4 marks in at least one line or has 3 corners marked.
As it will be appreciated, it is generally desirable that the near-bingo prizes will be much smaller than the bingo prize as shown in the Tables 1-3. The shaded columns in the tables represent the bingo prize and the near bingo prize. It will also be appreciated that the data in the columns labeled Bingo Prize and Near-Bingo Prize can be changed by the game designers to construct a particular prize structure.
In the embodiments of the concept shown in Tables 1-3, the Near Bingo Prize values, along with the Bingo Prizes are functions of the number of balls drawn to get Bingo. In Tables 1 and 2 the Near-Bingo Prize is a constant at 20 coins and in Table 3 the Near-Bingo prize generally declines as the number of balls drawn to get Bingo increases.
Of particular note, the bingo prize structures described above have a significant advantage in that it can substantially increase the frequency of player wins while still providing substantial jackpots and a good return to the game proprietor. In the examples of the prize structures above, the win frequency is approximately one in six. In fact by using a bingo prize structure of this type it becomes possible to closely replicate the prize structure of other casino games such as spinning reel slot machines. Additionally, this type of prize structure is particularly attractive in the bingo games where after the initial purchase of one or more cards, the game requires the players to pay a predetermined amount per card for the next ball or series of balls and thus has the option of only paying for cards that appear to be close to winning.
Another embodiment of the near bingo game described above includes implementing the near bingo operation in a manually played game. For example, the bingo cards 20-26 can be a set of cardboard bingo cards that are randomly distributed to the players in the game. As with conventional bingo games, the game can require that the players pay for each card that they received. The balls 58 instead of being simulated balls can be actual balls that are drawn or “dropped” from a drawing mechanism such as a cage or a rotating container that can be a mechanical embodiment of at least a portion of the system controller 10. Pay tables included in the prize structures of the type shown in Tables 1-3 above can be used to award the bingo and near bingo prizes.
Below is described the preferred embodiment of a method that can be implemented in an apparatus or system of the type shown in
In the preferred embodiment, computer intensive work done by the game logic 56 in the computer or controller 10 in playing a bingo game can be summarized in the 3 three following steps:
1. Draw a ball;
2. Mark those cells on the active cards that have that ball number; and
3. Check all the cards to see if a Bingo has occurred.
Table 4 shows a typical ball draw sequence. The greyed out numbers appear on the sample card of Tables 1 and 3.
Table 5 shows the marked cell numbers of the bingo card after the ball draw of Table 4. Note that only the cell numbers not the cell content is referred to here as only the marked cell numbers are required to determine if this card has a bingo. See Table 6 where the same data is displayed in conventional two dimensional form.
Table 6 illustrates the same data displayed in conventional two dimensional form such as on one of the cards 34-50 displayed on one of the displays 32.
The next step in this example of the process involves marking of the Bingo cards. In this example, a vector of 25 bits is sufficient to store the card mark data for a single bingo card: bit[i] is set to 1 if and only if cell[i] on the card is marked. Here, the card mark data bit vector is stored in a 32 bit integer variable and updated as the balls are drawn. Initially all bits of the mark record are 0 except the 13 bit which corresponds to the free square at cell 13 as shown in Table 7.1. The mark record is updated by the game logic 56 after each ball drawn by setting to 1 the bit corresponding to the cell containing the number of the drawn ball. After 5 balls have been drawn in the sequence of Table 4, the bit corresponding to the 10 ball on the record for the card described in Tables 1 and 3 is marked. As the number 10 occupies cell 5, the 5 bit is set to 1 as shown in Table 7.2. This process continues as the other balls are drawn, terminating when a bingo has been achieved after 14 balls have been drawn.
Determining that Bingo has been achieved is the next task of the process performed in the game logic 56 of the controller 10. The first step in this representative example involves marking the bingo cards in a database. In the preferred process, the card mark data is stored as a WorkingDeck Table in the digital memory 66. It includes two fields of interest:
CardId, containing the unique id of the card, and
marks, containing the current card mark vector data in a single long integer
Each bingo card mark vector starts out with only the 13 bit set to 1 as in Table7.1
where:
Card1V=the mark bit vector for card 1
UnitVectori=vector that has bit i set to 1 and all other bits 0.
Then cell[i] is marked on Card1V by
setting Card1V=bit-wise- or (Card1V, UnitVectori)
Another table, termed bitMapCards, can be stored in the digital memory 66. This table stores the same information contained in Table CardFace (Table 3), but in a form that simplifies the card marking operation.
Table 8 below is an illustration of a record for one card in the bitMapCards table.
As described below, the structure of the bitMapCards table is useful for the efficient marking operation. A description of the preferred configuration of the bitMapCards table follows:
The preferred embodiment of the table, the WorkingDeck Table contains the card mark vector data for the active cards throughout the play of the game. In this embodiment, it includes two fields:
CardId, containing the unique id of the card; and
marks, containing the current card mark vector data in a single long integer.
One advantage of the bitMapCards table as described is that when ball #N (2 in this case) is drawn it is possible to update all active cards in the WorkingDeck table with a single access to the database by, for example, using a SQL statement such as:
Update workingdeck, bitmapcards
Where Bitmapcards.CardId=Workingdeck.CardId
In checking for a Bingo, winning bingo patterns can also be represented as bit vectors as shown in a Table 9 below. The column integer value is the decimal value of the number whose binary representation is given by the bit vector. For example Column1=21+22+23+24+25=62.
To test for a particular winner in this particular example, such as the Column1 winner, each of the cells 1,2,3,4,5 must be marked on the test card, that is, each of these bits must be set in the mark vector for the test card.
With this notation
Column1Bingo(Card1)=True if Card1 has a column 1 bingo marked,
False otherwise
Column1WinV=Column1 Winner Bit Vector
Card1V=the mark bit vector for card 1
Column1 Bingo(Card1)=(bit-wise- and (Column1WinV,Card1V)=Column1WinV)
That is when masking the Card1 mark bit vector with the Column1 Winner vector using the bit-wise- and operation, it is apparent that the Column1 Winner bit vector, i.e. every bit spot in column 1 has been marked. Using this notation it is possible to select into the Bingos Table all the cards from Workingdeck that have a column1 Bingo in a single SQL statement. Where, as above, 62 is the column1 winner bit vector, the SQL statement can be:
As a result, all the cards in the WorkingDeck table can be checked for all possible bingos in the single SQL statement below. Those that contain a bingo then can be placed in a Bingos table. The numbers 62, 1984, 63488, etc. are the bitmap vectors for the bingo winners in Table 9. Note that Additional fields can be included in the Bingos table. The exemplary SQL statement is:
Select CardId, Marks into Bingos from WorkingDeck where
Bitwiseand(62,Marks)=62 Or—
Bitwiseand(1984,Marks)=1984 Or
Bitwiseand(63488,Marks)=63488 Or
Bitwiseand(2031616,Marks)=2031616 Or
Bitwiseand(65011712,Marks)=65011712 Or
Bitwiseand(2164802,Marks)=2164802 Or
Bitwiseand(4329604,Marks)=4329604 Or
Bitwiseand(8659208,Marks)=8659208 Or
Bitwiseand(17318416,Marks)=17318416 Or
Bitwiseand(34636832,Marks)=34636832 Or
Bitwiseand(34087042,Marks)=34087042 Or
Bitwiseand(2236960,Marks)=2236960 Or
Bitwiseand(35659810,Marks)=35659810
The method of constructing an apparatus and method for evaluating or checking each card in a bingo game using the bit marked card technique and vector operations with the advantage of being able to use a SQL type language as described above makes it possible to determine winning bingo cards in an expeditious manner and is particularly useful for an internet based a game that may include many thousands of cards.
The method and apparatus as described above has a particular advantage in an internet type game where there can be thousands of cards such as the cards 34-50. In an ordinary bingo game, marking the cards 34-50 and checking for Bingo is carried out at each player's location or computer, so that efficiency in marking cards and determining whether a bingo has occurred is ordinarily not a major consideration. By contrast, in an Internet bingo game, both of these operations are usually carried out at the central computer, such as the controller 10, for the entire population of cards in the game such as cards 34-50. This advantage of the described method arises by virtue of using the database manager, to mark and check a large number of cards in single operations.
It should be understood that the system shown in
Also, the system of competitive gaming as described above can be added to an existing gaming system incorporating conventional autonomous video poker machines. For example in a casino environment, such as shown in
As indicated above, the competitive game can be implemented using the casino computer 112 to control the competitive game as well as the machine specific game. Here, the logic required to implement the competitive game can be added to the casino computer or controller 112 in the form of additional software. This approach makes it possible to substantially increase both the play value and the revenue on the existing hardware in a casino.
As depicted in
It should be understood that the system shown in
A method of prize structure construction will first be described in terms of a spinning reel slot machine prize structure with a poker driven approximation that can be used in a system of the type shown in
In this class structure, the hands are ranked by number or denomination with the ace as the highest, then the king, queen, Jack, and then ten down to the lowest which is the two. In other words if two players have one pair and one has a pair of 10's and the other a pair of nines, the tens are the superior hand. A straight is when the five cards in a hand have five numerical rankings that are in exact sequence. A flush means all five cards are of the same suit.
An additional refinement of the major classes of Table 1 is made possible by using the denomination to distinguish between hands of the same major class. For example with this refinement the major class Straight Flush is refined as shown in Table 2 below. Here, the single rank associated with the subgroup of Straight Flush Hands is refined or expanded into ten ranks. Thus the granularity of the outcomes is increased by a factor of ten.
Following this example, there are 7462 equivalence classes of poker hands in a fifty two card deck. An equivalence class is defined as all hands in that class are of equal value. In other words, two hands in the same equivalence class tie when resolving the payoff in a typical poker game. For example, the hands: Jh, Ts, 6d, 5d, 5s and Js, Td, 6d, 5c, 5h (where h represents hearts, s represents spades, d represents diamonds and c represents clubs) are in the same equivalence class that would normally be described as a pair of 5s with Jack, Ten and Six. Note that the hands: Jh, Ts, 6d, 5d, 5s and Js, Td, 7d, 5c, 5h are not in the same equivalence class although both hands are often described with the short hand notation “pair of 5s”. The latter hand will win in a showdown and therefore is in its own class.
Thus, as demonstrated in the Table 3 of
The following is a representative example of how the increased granularity of a prize structure of Table 3 in
In this example which has six players playing the machines 224-234 are each in effect dealt five cards by the system computer 210. Here, the five cards for the player on the machine 224 are dealt from a 52 card deck A, five cards for the player on the machine 26 are dealt from another 52 card deck B, etc. The cards as dealt can be displayed on the display 242. In this example, at each play of the game a prize is awarded to the player with the hand ranked highest. The value of the prize will be determined by the rank of the winning hand.
Table 4 below depicts an example of a prize structure for a spinning reel game with 13 prize levels, a win frequency of 1 in 6 and a return percentage to the proprietor of the system of 96.77%.
It is then possible to approximate the prize structure of the spinning reel game of Table 4 with a poker game by identifying every possible winning hand in the poker game with exactly one prize which is then awarded to the player holding that winning hand. Specifically, this approximation can be accomplished utilizing the enhanced granularity structure of Table 3. As a representative example, Table 5 below illustrates an approximation made with the winning hand outcomes of a 6 player stud poker game.
In this example, the columns in Table 5 headed Lowest Hand Rank and Highest Hand Rank define the poker hands that yield the prize level. For example for prize level 2, the hand with rank 4427 is Two Pairs 9 9 7 7 6, the hand with rank 4570 is Two Pairs J J 5 5 7. A winning hand better than or equal to Two Pairs 9 9 7 7 6 and less than or equal to Two Pairs J J 5 5 7 will be awarded prize level 2. This will occur with probability 35,911.56 per million plays.
Another method for facilitating the operation of a gaming system of the type shown in
In this example, the Rank Description can contain a text description of the various hands such as “Full House of Aces Over Jacks.” The Card Index portion of the table can also be used to access a graphic representation of each of the cards in the deck for display on the card portion 242 of the display 240 of the machines 224-234. For example, a graphic of the Queen of Hearts can be accessed with the Card index fields of the Table 6 for display on the video display 242 as one of the cards dealt to a player on that machine. It should be noted that everything necessary to display the spinning reel game results on the display 244 is well known to those skilled in the art of gaming machine design.
The approach as described above has a number of significant advantages including the design of gaming systems where the prize structure of one game can be modified and utilized in connection with a payout format of another game such that the payouts can be designed so as to increase the attractiveness to players, provide a desired return to the game system's proprietor and conform to any statutory requirements. It will be appreciated that there are a wide variety of games, hardware and software in which these concepts can be implemented. For example, the embodiment of a gaming system described herein in is a multiplayer game, but the concept of enhancing the granularity of a prize structure of one game to provide a close simulation to the output of another game can be implemented in a single player or standalone video gaming machine. In addition to various types of poker, this approach of increasing the granularity of a first type game to approximate the display output of a second type of game such as a spinning real type slot machine can be used with other types of card games. For example, in a Black Jack game that uses multiple decks, the decks can be identified with different colors in order to expand the number of ranks. Other card games having player appeal which have hands that can be dealt on video gaming machines for which an expanded rank structure can be constructed: include Rummy, Hearts, Canasta, and Bridge.
Another advantage of constructing the prize or ranking structure as described above is that individual ranks of various hands can be adjusted on the basis of hand count per rank and number of hands per rank so as to enhance player enjoyment.
As background, consider a conventional slot machine with a prize structure that awards a 1,000,000 coin prize for a single coin with, on average, 5% of the coins-in to be returned to the player via awards of this prize. In order to accomplish this objective, the determining event for this prize should occur on average once per 20,000,000 coins-in. One method for accomplishing this is by defining this rare event in the context of a 6 player stud poker game as follows. For example, in a 6 player game, 3,333,333 games produce 20,000,000 coins in. In this case, the prize is awarded when the winning player has a royal flush and the second best hand is better than a 7 high straight. The probability of the winning hand among 6 players being a royal flush is 9.234427 parts per million (ppm) as shown in column 3 of
As with the other approaches as described above, the method of designing a prize structure illustrated in
This patent application is a Continuation-In-Part application of Ser. No. 13/066,371, filed Apr. 13, 2011 and claims priority on provisional patent application Ser. Nos. 61/342,346, filed Apr. 13, 2010; Ser. No. 61/400,513, filed Jul. 29, 2010; Ser. No. 61/401,028, filed Aug. 6, 2010; and Ser. No. 61/462,986, filed Feb. 10, 2010.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61342346 | Apr 2010 | US | |
| 61400513 | Jul 2010 | US | |
| 61401028 | Aug 2010 | US | |
| 61462986 | Feb 2011 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13066371 | Apr 2011 | US |
| Child | 13507344 | US |
