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Gambling with loyalty points

This application is a divisional of the U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 11/630,642.

This invention relates to lotteries, more particularly, lotteries into which entries are bought with loyalty points.

Today, loyalty points are commonly offered in customer rewards programs. These points are usable by customers to exchange for goods or services at any time, and are a liability on the balance sheet of the company offering the rewards programs. It may be desirable for corporations to reduce the liability presented by their loyalty points. One way to do so is to have them used in gambling transactions or converted to a pseudo or new form of currency that enables the free trade between participants.

A strategy for reducing the loyalty point liability is to offers the points holders opportunity to enter gambling or lottery arrangements, in which the amount of cash or prize paid out is less than the total amount of royalty point involved. The company that offers the rewards program, should it opt to do so, may enter into an agreement with a casino or other gaming operator to execute this strategy.

Accordingly, there is provided a method for a broker to establish a lottery, comprising the steps of: accepting loyalty points from a customer, issuing an entry to the lottery, based on a value ascribed to the loyalty points, conducting the lottery, and paying a prize to a winner of the lottery.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a game transaction interface;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a process flow for the remote witnessing of a game;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating methods for auctioning customer expenditures;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of business architecture;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating the steps associated with a loyalty point exchange for currency; and

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating the steps in a gaming method involving promotional currency.