Gaming apparatus and method for providing enhanced player participation in lottery games

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/919,209 filed Aug. 16, 2004 and entitled “GAMING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING ENHANCED PLAYER PARTICIPATION IN LOTTERY GAMES,” now U.S. Pat. No. ______, which claimed the benefit, under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/564,789 filed Apr. 23, 2004 and entitled “GAMING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING ENHANCED PLAYER PARTICIPATION IN LOTTERY GAMES.” The Applicants claim the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/919,209 under 35 U.S.C. §120, and claim the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/564,789 under 35 U.S.C. §119(e). The entire content of each of the above-identified U.S. patent applications is incorporated herein by this reference.

This invention relates to games of chance, and, more particularly, to electronic lottery games that provide for active player participation. The invention includes a gaming method and a gaming apparatus. The invention also encompasses a program product for implementing the gaming method.

Lottery games have become popular in many jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere. As used in this disclosure, a “lottery game” includes a game that is played with a pool of predefined tickets or game play records that are each associated with a particular result in the game. Some of the predefined tickets or game play records are each associated with a respective winning result and thus represent winning tickets. Other predefined tickets or game play records in the pool are each associated with a respective losing result and thus represent losing tickets or game play records. Since the pool of tickets or game play records has a predefined number of tickets or game play records and a predefined number of winning and losing records, the pool has a predefined payout to players and predefined hold for the game operator. That is, assuming that all tickets or game play records in the pool are sold, the cumulative payout to the players is known as is the cumulative value in from ticket or game play record sales.

Traditional lottery games are played with a paper lottery ticket. These paper lottery tickets are commonly printed with graphics consistent with a theme of the game. The printed graphics for each respective ticket include some result indicator that is correlated to or indicates the result associated with the respective ticket. These result indicators are commonly covered or obscured at the time the ticket is sold. Once the player obtains the ticket, he or she may remove the cover or obscuring material to reveal the result indicator and thus the result associated with the ticket.

The paper tickets in a traditional lottery game are commonly produced at some manufacturing facility in books of tickets, each made up of a continuous roll of individual tickets or a continuous fan fold stack of individual tickets with the individual tickets separated by perforations or break lines. The tickets are randomly ordered in the ticket books or groups and are sold and distributed sequentially from the randomized group of tickets so that the results in the lottery game are distributed to players in a random order unknown to the players or ticket sellers.

Lottery games have been implemented in electronic form in which the tickets or game play records each comprise an electronic data structure rather than a physical paper ticket. An electronic data structure representing a chance in a lottery-type game will be referred to further in this disclosure as a “game play record.” These game play records may take on a number of different forms. On one end of the spectrum each game play record includes a result indicator, record identifier, and data that defines graphics that are used to display the result of the game play record to the player. At the other end of the spectrum, each game play record includes only a record identifier, a result indicator, and perhaps a table identifier and prize value. Regardless of the particular form of data structure used for the individual game play records, the game play records are commonly grouped in data files analogous to books of paper tickets and distributed in some random order from the file. Since the game play records are arranged in data files, the random distribution may be performed by randomizing the order of game play records in the respective data file and then distributing the game play records sequentially in that random order, or the game play records can be ordered in the data files and distributed randomly from the files.

The electronic lottery games may be implemented with a gaming system that includes a central processing system for storing a file or different files of game play records and for distributing the game play records to player terminals which are in communication with the central processing system. The player terminals include a display device for displaying information to the player, an arrangement for accepting wagers, and an arrangement for receiving inputs from the player. In this example electronic lottery system, a player enters the lottery game by making a game play request at a player terminal. In response to a game play request entered by the player, the central processing system assigns a particular game play record for the game play request and communicates to the player terminal either the assigned game play record or information regarding the assigned game play record. The player terminal then displays the result associated with the game play record assigned to the player.

Game designers have sought to add excitement to lottery games. One particular method of adding excitement to a lottery game is to give the player the ability to choose from a number of game play records or chances from the pool of records or chances. Traditional paper lottery games have done this by using tickets having multiple chances or result indicators which are initially obscured, and allowing the player to select one or more of the chances/result indicators. In this arrangement, each different chance may represent a different game play record, and the player essentially chooses his or her game play record from the group printed on the ticket. U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,398 to Schneier, et al. discloses an electronically implemented system in which players make a selection from among a number of game play outcomes with each outcome representing a distinct chance in the game. In both of these prior art lottery game implementations, the results associated with game play records or the outcomes that are not selected by the player are not available for reuse. Thus, at least some of the game play records or outcomes making up the predetermined pool of game play records are never used in these prior art systems and are essentially wasted.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,606 to Riendeau, et al. discloses a lottery-type gaming system in which files of electronic game play records are downloaded to a particular gaming terminal for use in satisfying game play requests. At the end of some gaming period, game play records remaining unused at the gaming terminal are communicated back to a central processing system and collected with other unused game play records and undistributed game play records. These collected game play records are then used to make files of game play records that are downloaded to gaming terminals for use in satisfying later game play requests. U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,606 did not, however, disclose any arrangement for reusing game play records remaining unselected after being assigned to a game play request initiated by a player.

The present invention provides a method for electronically implemented lottery games that allows players to select from among different game play records and facilitates the recovery of unselected game play records for use in response to a future game play request. The present invention also encompasses apparatus and program products for implementing this gaming method.

A lottery gaming system according to the present invention utilizes a number of (that is, multiple) pools of predetermined game play records similar to the game play record pools used in earlier systems. As used in this disclosure and the accompanying claims the term “pool” is used to refer generically to a group of game play records from which individual game play records are selected in satisfying a game play request, regardless of the format in which the information that makes of the game play records is stored. As will be discussed below some preferred forms of the invention store a pool of game play records in the form on a single electronic data file. However, the invention is not limited to any particular manner or format in which the data representing the game play records may be stored.

One preferred method according to the present invention is performed through an electronic player station and includes displaying to a player a player choice display that includes a number of representations. The number of representations are displayed to the player simultaneously and each representation is selectable in some fashion by the player; however, the representations preferably do not themselves provide any indication as to a correlated prize. Thus each representation embodies a player choice in the play of a game, but does not indicate a prize correlated to that player choice. A game result for the player choice is obtained from any one of a number of game play record pools that are simultaneously available through one or more data processing devices for supplying the game result. This preferred method further includes receiving a player choice input initiated by the player through a player input arrangement of the player station, the player choice input identifying a selected one of the number of representations. The method then includes displaying a result associated with an assigned game play record that has been assigned to the player in response to the player choice input. The assigned game play record is a game play record that has been assigned from a respective one of the game play record pools with which the selected one of the representations has been associated. Because the game play record that is assigned in response to the player choice input is from a game play record pool that has been associated with the selected one of the representations, the player\'s selection, that is, the player choice input, may have an impact on which game play record is assigned to the player for a given play of the game. This impact on which game play record is assigned to the player may make the game more exciting to some players, even though the results are still distributed randomly to the extent the player does not know which game play record will be assigned for a given game play choice and to the extent the game play records are still assigned in a random order from the various game play record pools. Furthermore, even though the player has essentially a choice in which game play record is used to provide the result for the play in the game, the game play records that are not assigned in response to the player choice input may remain available for use in satisfying another game play request or a player choice input.

The invention encompasses a variety of processes for making the unassigned game play records available for reuse in response to a later game play request. In one preferred process for making unassigned game play records available for use to satisfy a later game play request, each game play record in a game play record file includes or is associated with a status field that may be used to mark a status for the game play record. This status field for each game play record is originally marked as “valid,” meaning that the game play record is available for allocation or assignment in response to a game play request. Game play records from the various available pools may be allocated for a given group of representation displayed to a player for a player choice input. At the time a respective game play request is allocated to a game play record set in response to a game play request, the status field for that game play record is marked “invalid” or “used.” This status indicates that the game play record is not available for allocation or assignment in response to a game play request or player choice input. Once the player, by virtue of the player choice input, makes his or her selection of one or more game play records from the allocated game play record set, the selected game play record or records retain the “invalid” status, while the unselected game play records, that is, the unassigned game play records, are changed back to “valid” status. These “valid” unassigned game play records are again available for allocation or assignment.

In another form of the invention, the unassigned records from each game play record set are collected to form a separate unassigned or collected record pool. Once the unassigned record pool contains a certain minimum number of game play records, the game play records are made available for assignment or allocation. Alternatively, the unassigned records are returned to the pool that they were drawn from originally and either added to the end of the pool in the order they were initially drawn or reshuffled and then placed at the end of the file. Another method for collecting game play records within the scope of the present invention includes adding the unassigned game play records to another game play record pool other than the pool from which the unassigned game play records were originally drawn.

It should be noted that the collected, unassigned game play records do not have to be used in responding to a later player choice input. For example, the unassigned game play records may be collected for use in a lottery game where an individual game play record is assigned to a player in response to a game play request and the player does not have a choice among different game play records.

Methods according to the invention are preferably implemented using operational computer program code. This program code may include game play record storage program code and record assignment program code. The game play record storage program code is executable for causing the number of game play record pools to be stored in data storage. The record assignment program code is executable for assigning to the player a respective game play record from one of the game play record pools in response to the player choice input. As in the method described above, the game play record is assigned from the game play record pool to which the selected one of the representations is mapped.

A program product according to the present invention may further include record allocation program code and record collection program code. The record collection program code is executable to make the allocated but unassigned game play records available for use in satisfying a later play in the lottery gaming system. The record allocation program code allocates game play records for use in responding to a player choice input, preferably by changing a status indicator for the game play record according to the method described above and described further below in the Description of Preferred Embodiments section.