Generating a score related to play on gaming devices

This disclosure relates generally to generating a score related to play on electronic gaming machines, and more particularly to generating and displaying a score related to the results of wagering by a player on an electronic gaming machine.

Some prior art video arcade games incorporate systems that automatically store the highest scores on that game. Such games typically list the scores in order from the highest to the lowest, e.g., the top 5 scores. If at the conclusion of a game, the current game score is determined to be greater than one of the stored scores, the current score is inserted into the stored scores at the appropriate location and the lowest score drops off. In some cases, the player who makes it onto the top score list is given the opportunity to use the game controls to insert his or her initials next to their score. This generates excitement for the player who breaks into the ranks of top scorers and promotes friendly competition among players, all of which promotes game play.

With conventional gaming machines, a player typically only has a credit meter and a player tracking account that keeps track of his or her play on the gaming device. More specifically, the gaming device adjusts a credit meter to reflect the number of credits input by a player and adjusts that number relative to the number of credits wagered and/or won during game play of the gaming device. A player may also insert additional money during play of the gaming device, which raises the value displayed on the credit meter. Given these above scenarios, it becomes evident that the values displayed on the credit meters are not necessarily accurate indicators of the player\'s accomplishment on the gaming device. In addition, when the player has exhausted the credits on the credit meter or cashes out to retrieve the remaining credits on the credit meter, the credit meter remains at zero until that player or another player insert credits into the gaming machine. Hence, there is no indication as to how the previous player\'s gaming session went. In other words, the player may have won considerably more credits than he or she inputted into the gaming machine. However, there is no displayable record or other indication on the gaming machine of this gaming session.

Similarly, when a player inserts a player tracking card into a gaming device, the results of the gaming session may be stored on a player tracking server and player points accumulated during the gaming session may be displayed on the gaming machine or a peripheral device connected to the gaming machine. However, these displayed player points often only relate to the amount of credits wagered by the player (i.e., coin-in) and bear no relationship to the results achieved by a player during the course of the gaming session. In addition, once the player removes the player tracking card, no displayable record or other indication on the gaming machine exists for the gaming session.

Thus, in conventional gaming systems and devices, there is no means by which a player can display a particularly good gaming session to other players, nor a means by which other players can tell how previous players have done on a particular gaming machine.

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to generating and displaying a score related to the results of wagering by a player on a gaming device. In one embodiment, a method for generating a score related to play on at least one electronic gaming device includes tracking the amount wagered on the gaming device, tracking the amount awarded by the gaming device, and generating a score related to the tracked amounts.