FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to methods and systems for awarding game players with prizes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Given that players of casino wagering games often lose more money than they win in a particular gaming session, casinos often use secondary or additional rewards as a means for rewarding players and further enticing game play. One informal way of doing this is age-old: provide players with free drinks while they are playing.

As another way of rewarding more of the amounts wagered by players, a casino may modify a game to include a specific secondary award. For example, relative to a table game, a player might be issued an entry ticket in a secondary prize drawing, where the secondary prize is funded by the casino out of winnings (generally or from the particular table). For example, a player might be awarded a secondary prize drawing ticket if a player achieves a certain predetermined game outcome (such as receiving a suited Blackjack on a Blackjack game). Not only is this a labor-intensive system that requires physical tickets (such as by the dealer, thus also slowing the game down), but it requires players to accumulate tickets for the drawing and enter them into the drawing. Moreover, such a drawing does not allow for the tickets to be distributed based on the actual worth of a player. Such a system also doesn't allow for an instant notification of winning a prize, as players must instead place their tickets into a drawing hopper for a drawing that is held at a certain later time, doesn't ensure fairness and accountable distribution of entry tickets, and doesn't allow for progressive prize pools to be included in the prize offerings.

Similarly, relative to a gaming machine or a group of gaming machines, a casino might implement a secondary award. For example, a slot-style gaming machine may have a paytable of base awards and an average house hold. A portion of this house hold may further be returned to the players of the gaming machine by generating a progressive jackpot from a portion of the house hold on the gaming machine (such as by allocating a small portion of each wager at the gaming machine to the jackpot). This concept may be expanded to a group of linked gaming machines via a “progressive system” where one or more progressive jackpots are associated with two or more gaming machines. However, a problem with these types of systems is that they may link different wagering devices together even though those devices may present wagering games having entirely different house advantages for the same wager—whereby some players are effectively contributing more to the progressive jackpot than others, while having the exact same opportunity or chance to win as the other players.

Over time, casinos have thus sought ways to award secondary rewards which are not necessarily linked to a particular game and in a manner which distinguishes players based upon their wagering activity—e.g. awarding players who wager more with higher value awards than those who do not. Casinos created player tracking systems as one way to track player play of player game play, such as at any gaming machines in a casino. Typically, these tracking systems require a player to identify themselves when they play a gaming machine, such as by inserting a player tracking card that identifies the player. The player's activities at the gaming machine can be tracked. Points may be awarded, for example, based upon a player's gaming activity, wherein accrued levels of points may yield different awards to the player.

Accurately valuing table game players, especially the mid-level player as compared to the “high rollers” that are personally catered to by casino executives, is a long-standing problem that exists in individualizing the actual value of each player. Originally, one problem was that it was simply difficult to even track the amounts wagered by different players at a gaming table (where, unlike a gaming machine where wagers are placed via electronic credits registered at the gaming machine which are fully trackable by the machine, wagers placed at a gaming table are typically made via chips). This problem has partially been solved through the use of RFID or optical chip recognition, thus allowing the system to “read” the chips placed by each player and thus determined a value of the wagers placed by a player and amounts won (via exchanges of chips).

While electronic gaming devices can capture data regarding each wager made, existing casino systems are simply configured to track the amount of money that a player wagered throughout their gaming session. The term for the amount of money wagered is identified as “Coin In” or “Handle”. With this information, the casino applies one house advantage to the “Handle” which will calculate a term called “Theoretical Expectation”—which is the amount of money the casino expects to win from the player's gaming session. From this “Theoretical Expectation”, a casino will determine the size of an award that should be awarded to a player.

This methodology, however, has numerous problems and drawbacks. Currently, if multiple game types are offered, where each game type consists of multiple different wager types, the player's worth will be calculated using a single advantage value. This results in players not being rewarded based upon their actual value to the casino. For example, a $100 wager on a hand of Blackjack is worth around $1 to the casino, while the same bet on Roulette is worth $5.26, and if it was placed on a Blackjack side wager, it could be worth as much as $10 or more. Thus, a system which rewards each player who placed a $100 on those different types of games with the same reward, is essentially unfair.

An improved system and method for awarding secondary prizes to players which overcomes these and other problems, is desired.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the invention comprise methods and systems for awarding secondary awards or prizes to players of wagering games.

One embodiment of the invention is a system and method for awarding secondary prizes where there are different allocations of funds to a secondary award prize pool based upon wagers placed on wagering events having different house advantages.

Another embodiment of the invention is a system and method for awarding secondary prizes where a player receives a different number of opportunities, such as prize entries, for wagers placed on different wagering events having different house advantages, and preferably where each prize entry has its own win/lose outcome.

Another embodiment of the invention is a system and method for awarding secondary prize opportunities, such as entries, as funded by underlying game wagers, where the number of opportunities varies based upon the underlying wagering event (and particularly, the house advantage) and there is a win/lose outcome for each secondary prize entry.

Yet another embodiment of the invention is a system and method for developing a prize pool that joins two or more game types and different wager types within each game, and allows each wager type/game type to participate in the same prize pool.

Another embodiment of the invention is a system and method which allows players to win prizes based on accruing opportunities, such as entries, that are dependent on the value of each wager that they make. Each wager is assigned a certain number of entries based on the total worth of the wager. The system effectively allocates or assigns a portion of the casino's advantage for each wager and applies that allocation to a prize fund that can be used for prizes that can be won by the players. The prize pool can consist of progressive prize pools, promotional awards such as food credits, and cash prizes.

Further objects, features, and advantages of the present invention over the prior art will become apparent from the detailed description of the drawings which follows, when considered with the attached figures.

