EP1234606A1

EP1234606A1 - Interactive gaming method involving bets and device for the implementation thereof

Info

Publication number: EP1234606A1
Application number: EP99969243A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Alexandr Ivanovich Silaev; Ekaterina Alexandrovna Silaeva; Nikolai Alexandrovich Silaev
Original assignee: Silaev Alexandr Ivanovitch
Current assignee: Silaev Alexandr Ivanovitch
Priority date: 1999-11-12
Filing date: 1999-11-12
Publication date: 2002-08-28
Also published as: EA200200445A1; EP1234606A4; EA003661B1; CA2388787A1; WO2001034258A1; AU2834700A

Abstract

The invention relates to the game and leisure industry, in particular to methods and devices for conducting iteration-and-analytical games which are based on the principle of sequential placing of wagers on information elements taken from the preset game set, with analysis of the quantitative distribution of said wagers. The game method involving wagers is characterized in that the drawing of wagers in a new round of the game is started at registration of the first signal with information about a wager, upon completion of a previous round or upon announcement of the game start, in which, at every iteration of the wager drawing, signals carrying information about the wager quantitative distribution on elements taken from the game set are communicated through communication channels to data display means of a player whose information is treated at this iteration. The invention provides a maximum level of interactivity and/or informative transparency of the game process, thereby improving the level of game interest as well as intellectual and sporting rivalry of iteration-and-analytical games for the players and spectators.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the game and leisure industry, in particular to methods and devices for conducting games which are based on the principle of sequential placing of wagers on information elements taken from the preset game set.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The known games involving wagers, according to features of drawing and placing wagers on elements taken from the game set, may be divided into three groups.

In the first game group, the drawing of wagers is separated in time and independent of the wager placing; information about wagers in the process of their placing on elements taken from the game set is concealed from the players, while information about the course of wager drawing is available to all participants.

Examples of the first game group include lottery games in which numeric samples from a set of numbers are used as wagers: a "Sportloto" lottery conducted since the 1970-s in Russia, with samples "6 of 45" or "5 of 36"; its modern electronic version "Lotto Million" (see, journal "Kommersant-Dengi", No. 15 [218], April 21, 1999, pp. 23, 24, 26); the Canadian state lottery "6 of 49" with the opportunity to place and pay wagers through a computer Internet network (see, Internet URL http://www.cimltd.com/lotto); a telephone lottery "Indexloto 10 of 10" comprising on-the-phone registration, before the drawing, of numeric indexes consisting of non-repeating digits (see, Russian Federation Patent No. 2,053,827, 1996, A63F 3/06).

In the second game group, the drawing of wagers is separated and independent of their placing; information about wagers in the process of their placing on elements taken from the game set is available to all participants; information about the course of placing the wagers is also available to all participants.

Examples of the second game group include "Roulette", a traditional game for casino, in which wagers are placed on elements of a playing table accessible for visual observation of all participants, while the drawing is carried out by starting rotation of roulette with a ball accessible for visual observation of all participants, and getting the ball into one of sectors located on a roulette disk. They also include totalizators with the dissemination of information about wagers made by participants in the game during the wager placing (see, journal "Bolshaya Igra", No. 3, 1997).

In the third game group, the drawing of wagers coincides with their placing and is dependent upon this process; information about the wagers made is either concealed from the players before the completion of the wager drawing or presented during the wager drawing to the players individually and exclusively on their request in exchange for additional wagers.

Iteration-and-analytical games representing the closest prior art with respect to the subject matter of the present invention constitute the third group.

A wager game method chosen as the prior art method comprises forming a game set from N>2 information elements by generating a set from N non-repeating information codes in a computer memory; propagating among the players, through communication lines, signals which carry information about the game set elements; selecting, by a player, one of the game set elements as a wager; communicating, through feedback communication lines, signals which identify the players and carry information about the wagers; identifying and registering signals received through feedback lines; producing a wager payment and wager drawing data in the playing rounds; registering signals, which contain the wager information, in a sequence of their arrival through feedback lines, said sequence is kept hidden from the players until the playing round is completed; and drawing wagers by means of the iteration-and-analytical process of forming a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements, said process is kept hidden from the players until the playing round is completed; wherein at every iteration of the said process a regular signal of a registered signal sequence is correlated with the information code of the game set element selected as a wager by the player; the number of signals correlated with the information code of the game set element in the current playing round is determined; observation of conditions of a wager drawing end is checked; a wager drawing is completed as soon as the said conditions are observed; and in the presence of the registered wager information-carrying signals not processed in the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing process before the completion of the current playing round, these signals are processed in the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing process in one of the next rounds.

The aforementioned wager game method chosen as the prior art is realized by means of a wager game device comprising a game set forming unit connected via a data dissemination unit to one of inputs of an input/output processor connected with its information output to a recognition and identification unit, a wager payment unit, a wager registration unit, a drawing controller, a winning-logic unit, and a recording unit which are connected in series; a round counter connected to the second input of the wager registration unit and the second output of the drawing controller connected with its second input to the output of the game set forming unit; a long-term memory unit interconnected with the recognition and identification unit and the wager payment unit; a timer connected to the drawing controller, the recognition and identification unit, the wager payment unit, and the recording unit; a wager drawing processor interconnected with the drawing controller; a wager registration confirmation unit connected to the input of the input/output processor and the second output of the wager registration unit; a payment registration unit and an outcome review unit which are interconnected with the long-term memory unit and the input/output processor and also connected to corresponding outputs of the recognition and identification unit; the recording unit and the wager registration confirmation unit being connected with their outputs to corresponding inputs of the long-term memory unit (see, Eurasian Patent No. 000 233, 1998, G 06 F 161:00).

Dependence of the wager drawing process upon actions of the players defines intellectual pithiness of iteration-and-analytical games in comparison with other games involving wagers. The possibility of conducting games on the playing pluralities of different N dimensions, ranging from midget (N<10) to indefinitely large (N>100,000), enables to create local, territorial, national and international networked computer game systems which offer a wide user's choice of the game variants and joint participation of both few (from 2 individuals) and numerous (hundreds thousand and millions) players who gain access employing modern telecommunication means and computer networks.

One of the embodiments of the prior art method provides for a limited interactive game mode by providing a player with information about a quantitative wager distribution formed in the current playing round, said information being presented to the player on his or her request in exchange for an additional wager, which is placed by a wager game device on behalf, and at the expense, of the player. This embodiment, although enables the prior art method to feature a rather high level of game interest and also intellectual and sporting rivalry, fails to fully reveal potentialities of the interactive wager drawing inherent in the iteration-and-analytical games.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses the task of expanding a set of technical solutions related to methods and devices for conducting interactive iteration-and-analytical games involving wagers, thus further improving the aforementioned positive qualities inherent in these games.

As compared to the prior art method and device, the claimed invention provides a maximum level of interactivity and/or informative transparency of the game process, thereby improving the level of game interest and also intellectual and sporting rivalry of iteration-and-analytical games for the participants and spectators.

The indicated result is achieved in a wager game method which comprises forming a game set of N>1 information elements by generating a set of N non-repeating information codes in a computer memory; communicating to data display means of the players, through communication lines, signals which carry information about the game set elements, wager drawing completion conditions, a wager price and rules for the determination of winning wagers; registering the players each having received a unique identification index; selecting, by every player, one of the game set elements as a wager, or forming by him or her a request for the generation of a wager in his or her name; communicating, through feedback communication lines, signals which identify the players and carry information about the wagers; identifying and registering signals received through feedback lines, in a succession which is defined by the sequence of their arrival; producing wager payment data; generating wagers by signals of the players with a corresponding request; drawing the wagers in the playing rounds by means of the iteration-and-analytical process of producing signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements; at every stage of the said process, correlating a regular signal of a registered signal sequence with the information code of a game set element which corresponds to this signal; determining the number of signals correlated with the information code of each game set element; analyzing a predetermined condition of the wager drawing end which is defined by the quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements; completing the wager drawing and the current playing round at the current iteration as soon as said condition of the wager drawing end is observed; producing, in the playing round, and communicating, upon its completion, to data display means of the players, signals which carry information about the drawing results and all wagers processed; and commencing the wager drawing in a new playing round when registering the first signal which carries information about a wager upon completion of the preceding round or upon notice of the game start; wherein at every iteration of the drawing process, signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements are communicated through communication channels to data display means of a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration.

In the claimed game method, information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements is communicated, in response to every wager to be registered, to a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration by the iteration-and-analytical process. As a result, a player having placed a wager may subsequently decide to select the game set elements as his or her wagers, based on the analysis of information about a quantitative wager distribution received with his or her data display means, and also with regard to his or her wagers registered earlier and for the wager drawing completion conditions and rules for the determination of winning wagers, said conditions and rules being known to all players.

Completion of the drawing of wagers with their sequential registration and processing is ensured by contingency of the wagers to be placed, by a condition of the wager drawing completion which is defined by a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements, and also by rules for the determination of winning wagers which encourage challengers for winnings to place the wagers such as to complete the iteration-and-analytical process and thereby ensure and/or preserve winning states of their wagers. In so doing, a methodical factor of contingency of the wagers to be placed is caused by ignorance of a quantitative wager distribution at a moment of entering of a new player into the game, by a player's receipt of an updated information about the wager distribution only after his or her wager is registered, and by aging of this information at a moment when this player fixes his or her new wager. Generally, it is also caused by possible delay of the communicated information about a quantitative wager distribution with respect to the number of iteration at which information about a quantitative wager distribution is communicated to data display means of the player. A subjective factor of contingency of the wagers to be placed is caused by the difference in analytical abilities of the players shown by them when fixing wagers under time shortage conditions in the decision-making; a particular player encounters personal analytical errors and/or delays in the decision-making, which result in miwagern decisions taken about the wager placing, and/or correct decisions loose their topical character before realization. A technical factor of contingency of the wagers to be placed is caused by a possible difference in the speed of response of technical facilities (communication links, data transmission and display means) used by different players for the wager placing and data displaying, which also results in miwagern decisions and/or delays when placing the wagers.

In this game method, control over transmission of signals carrying information about a histogram to data display means of the players is generally associated with the possibility of providing the players with not very topical information about a histogram. For example, at the first iterations of the wager drawing process, the players are provided with the most topical information about a histogram which takes into account the last wager processed in the current playing round; however, from some number of iteration specified by the game regulations or defined with regard to the peculiarities of the current histogram, information to be communicated is supplemented with a constant or variable delay as to the number of the last wager taken into account in the histogram, or as to the time which divides an instant of communicating information about a histogram and an instant in which the histogram designed for the transmission had the most topical character.

Below, this game method is called, for short, a "basic method", while a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements - a "histogram".

An equal degree of informative transparency of the wager drawing process simultaneously for some or all players is ensured by an embodiment of the basic game method in which, at every iteration of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about the quantitative distribution of wagers on the game set elements are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players.

As a result of simultaneous transmission of information about a histogram to data display means of some or all players, these some players or all players turn out to be equally informed about the game state and may take decisions as to the selection of the game set elements as their wagers, based on the received information about a histogram, with regard to their wagers placed earlier and for the wager drawing completion conditions and rules for the determination of winning wagers, said conditions and rules being known to all players.

This embodiment of the basic game method provides for three variants of disseminating information about a histogram among the players in the wager drawing process:

a) to some, but not all players - at all iterations;

b) to all players - at all iterations;

c) to some, but not all players - at some iterations, and to all players - at the remaining iterations.

The possibility of simultaneous transmission of information about a histogram at all iterations to some, but not all players is essential when conducting team games involving wagers, when members of the same team each being the player strive hard to place their wagers such as to ensure winnings of wagers of the players - members of the same team. In applying this embodiment of the basic game method to team iteration-and-analytical games, at every iteration of the wager drawing process, information about a histogram may be communicated to data display means of only those players being members of a team in which appears the player whose wager is processed at a given iteration. In these cases, the players - members of the same team may use data display means which are common to this team.

Simultaneous transmission of information about a histogram to all players may be performed both in team games and individual games, when each player appears against all remaining players. In this case, at every instant of time all players dispose of the same information about the game status which is defined by histogram, and signals carrying information about a histogram may be communicated to accessible data display means which may be used by the players jointly. Application of the team and accessible data display means makes the game more entertaining for detached observers and fans and favors the drawing of new participants.

Transmission of information about a histogram to some, but not all players at some iterations and to all players at the remaining iterations of the wager drawing process may be used, e.g., in team games with simultaneous transmission of signals carrying data about a histogram to data display means of one team (namely, the very team in which a player's wager is processed at the current iteration), when performing several first iterations, by subsequent switching a mode of communicating signals carrying data about a histogram to data display means of all participating teams (that is, all players), when special points appear in the histogram (absolute minimums, maximums, last zeros), by re-switching a signal transmission mode to data display means of one team, when special points disappear in the histogram etc., before completion of the playing round. This variant of providing the players with information about a histogram in iteration-and-analytical games, in which a condition of the wager drawing completion depends on the presence of special points in the histogram, makes the game more entertaining and interesting, since it grants simultaneously to all players an opportunity of using a playing situation which may, using some new wagers, be reduced to the fulfillment of a condition of the wager drawing completion.

Wider possibilities for controlling transmission of information about a histogram to data display means of the players as compared to the basic method and its version mentioned above are afforded by another version of the basic game method, in which at predetermined iterations of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements are communicated through communication channels to data display means of some or all players.

In this version of the basic game method, when performing iterations of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated simultaneously to data display means of some or all players, said iterations may be specified in different way. For example, the numbers of such iterations may be assigned and announced by the game organizer prior to the game start and/or formed in the course of the game, in accordance with a program prescribed prior to the game start, in particular, the same may be iterations at which the given conditions are fulfilled, said conditions being defined by the histogram.

Moreover, as in case of the preceding version of the basic game method, this version gives an opportunity to use different variants of choosing the players which simultaneously receive information about a histogram. So, in case of a team game, information about a histogram may be communicated only to data display means of the players being members of the same team, in particular, the team on behalf of which a wager was placed, thus causing the fulfillment of histogram-predetermined conditions and, as a consequence, the transmission of information about a histogram to data display means of other players being members of this team. Generally, simultaneous transmission of information about a histogram to data display means of some or all players may be effected with sessions of certain duration (in time and/or amount of iterations represented simultaneously), as well as depending on time expired from the moment of the wager drawing commencement and/or on the number of executed iterations of the wager drawing process. A game organizer defines and specifies in the game regulations a specific rule of assigning iterations of the wager drawing process, in which information on histogram is communicated simultaneously to data display means of some or all players, and also the rule of determining the players which simultaneously receive with their data display means signals carrying information about a histogram.

In a particular modification of this version of the basic game method, the numbers of iterations, in the execution of which signals carrying information about a wager distribution on the game set elements are simultaneously communicated to data display means of some or all other players, are assigned with regard to signals of the players which contain a request for the presentation of information about a quantitative wager distribution to some or all players.

In this version of the game method, any player may send, through feedback lines into a game system, a signal carrying a request for the presentation of information about a generated histogram to some or all players, said signal with the request may be sent both along with a signal carrying information about a wager and separately. Generally, a signal with the request also assigns the number of iteration in the execution of which it is required to present information about a histogram; specifically, this may be the current iteration or iteration that is executed in the first place after receipt of the signal with the request. Generally, signals with the players' requests for the presentation of information about a histogram are taken into account in addition to already assigned (in accordance with a certain program) numbers of iterations in the execution of which signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated simultaneously to data display means of some or all players; in a particular case, information about a histogram is presented exclusively on the basis of such requests.

This version of the game method gives any player freedom to choose an instant of time when, on his or her request, information about the quantitative wager distribution is presented simultaneously to some or all players and makes it possible to conduct team games involving wagers, in which at certain instants of time members of the same team being the players each seeking to ensure winnings, in order to take concerted action, need information which is presented simultaneously to all members of the team. The cost of executing such a request may be, e.g., an additional wager to be assigned by the game system on behalf of a player who has sent the request, and/or simultaneous representation of information about a histogram to all players, including members of other participating teams.

An opportunity for the player to refuse the sending of the said request for providing members of his or her team with information about a histogram at some iterations may be caused, e.g., by a predictable delay in the receipt and display of information under time-shortage playing conditions, when quick placing of a new wager is more important for the player from the standpoint of achieving a winning result as compared to the presentation of data about a histogram to the team members. In a particular embodiment of the basic game method with simultaneous transmission of information about a quantitative wager distribution to data display means of all players, the absence at some iterations of requests for data transmission may be associated, e.g., with the intention of the players not to discover to competitors a playing situation arising as a result of placing their new wagers.

Topical character of information about a histogram to be communicated to the players is defined by serial numbers of executed wager drawing iterations, said numbers being taken into account in the communicated information about a histogram. In particular, signals carrying information about the generated histogram may be communicated to the data display means
with a constant or variable delay as to an iteration time or number. For example, within every 2 minutes of the game start the data display means may be provided with signals carrying information about a histogram that took place a minute earlier or, e.g., 2 iterations before the instant of data transmission.

The question about topical character of data about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means may be governed by the game regulations.

At the same time, in order to further improve the game competitive nature, an important particular case of solving the question about topical character of the communicated data about a histogram consists in the implementation of the basic game method and its versions indicated above, according to which the data display means be provided with signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution that are generated with regard to information about a wager processed at the wager drawing iteration last-executed by the moment of signal transmission.

In this case, the data display means is provided with signals carrying the most topical information about the generated histogram, with regard to all executed iterations of the wager drawing process from its start to the moment of data transmission. This embodiment of the basic game method and its versions enhances the level of the game competitive nature for the players, since decisions as to the placing of new wagers when executing the specified iterations may be taken with regard to the current drawing status. In so doing, interactivity and informative transparency of the game process reach the highest level in a particular modification of the basic game method involving wagers, in which at every iteration of the wager drawing process signals carrying a histogram information are communicated to the data display means of all players.

In the latter case, a methodical factor of contingency of the wagers to be placed in the game is absent. If technical facilities of identical purpose used in the game have identical technical characteristics, then distinctions in the speed of response, when placing the wagers, will be caused by subjective factors only, and this case will correspond to an intellectual sports game with winners among those players who quickly respond to changes in the current status of the wager drawing process and with less (by significance and quantity) analytical errors, as compared to other players. With the predetermined condition of the wager drawing completion, a game organizer must choose the rules of the winning wager determination, those of the prize-fund assignment and distribution, such as to avoid "insurmountable hang-up" states where, given an accessible, complete and reliable information about the game status, it seems disadvantageous to all the players simultaneously to place new wagers.

For instance, if the game uses a condition of completing the wager drawing, known from the description of the prior art method as "Force of Zero", according to which the wager drawing process in the current playing round completes at the iteration of processing the wager placed on the only game set element that is not selected as a wager in a given playing round, a formal application of the rule of determining a winning wager known from the description of the prior art method, according to which the last wager processed in the completed playing round (and only this wager) is a winning wager, provided that a prize fund is formed based on the number of wagers placed, leads in this case to an "insurmountable hang-up" state of the drawing right after announcement of its start, which is explained by a subjective aspiration not to place wittingly losing wagers. However, if these rules were supplemented with a condition under which every playing round comprises two steps: at the first stage, each player has to place at least [N/m] qualification wagers, where N - a total number of game set elements, m>1 - a known fixed number of the players, [x] - an integer part of the number x, and a final drawing step begins only upon completion of the first step, the possibility of emergence of an "insurmountable hang-up" state would be ruled out.

Another variant of ruling out the possibility of emergence of an "insurmountable hang-up" state in this case, when using a condition of completing the wager drawing "Force of Zero", consists in the application of another rule of distributing the prize fund, e.g., rules of even distribution of the prize fund among the wagers which were the first to be placed on each of the game set elements. Under this rule, every player will strive for placing as much his or her wagers as possible on the remaining "free" game set elements, thus leading to unconditional completion of the wager drawing process irrespective of the degree of its informative transparency, given two or more players.

The following modifications of the basic game method and its versions determine an additional information which is presented to the players along with information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements.

In the first modification, among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be displayed on the data display means, there are separated those signals that carry data about wagers taken into account in this distribution and registered on behalf of the player whose data display means is provided with signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution.

In this modification of the claimed game method, a histogram to be displayed on the player's data display means contains special markers of those game set elements on which wagers of this player are placed in a given playing round. Moreover, a histogram to be displayed may contain data about the quantity and/or serial numbers of wagers of a given player which are placed on the marked game set elements, and also other data about a status of his or her wagers in the presented distribution histogram, e.g., signs of the availability of chances of each wager winnings. The availability of such information helps the player to evaluate the arising playing situation and take decisions as to further actions with regard to the status of wagers placed earlier.

In another modification, among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry identification data about the belonging of a wager to a particular player and/or particular group of players, with respect to each wager taken into account in this distribution.

In this modification of the claimed game method, a histogram-containing information to be communicated to the data display means includes special signs that identify the belonging of each wager taken into account in this histogram to a particular player; in case of the team game, it includes special signs that identify the belonging of each wager to the players acting for a particular team. Display of identifying signs of the placed wagers enables the player to keep an eye on playing actions of his or her competitors and respond to them purposefully when placing new wagers, which promotes the sporting competition of the game. When conducting team games, this modification allows to keep an eye on playing actions of partners and competitors on the data display means. Application of this modification to a particular case of the basic game method in which signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated to the data display means of all players simultaneously, enhances the attractiveness of the game for detached observers and fans, since this makes it possible for them to observe and distinguish actions of the players.

In another modification of the claimed game method, among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry data about a serial number of each wager taken into account in this distribution, said number being determined by the number of iteration at which this wager was processed by the iteration-and-analytical process in a given playing round.

In this modification, signals carrying information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means contain the numbers of wagers in the sequence of their processing by the iteration-and-analytical process, with respect to each wager taken into account in the information about a histogram. Serial numbers of wagers may be taken into consideration by the players when taking decisions on subsequent playing actions when, e.g., serial numbers of wagers are taken into account under conditions of the drawing completion and/or in the rules of the winning wager determination and the prize-fund assignment and distribution.

In another modification of the claimed game method, at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration in the current playing round, is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round.

In this version of the game method, each player, when placing his or her wager, gets information about a wager serial number in the playing round, in which this wager is drawn, and also about the number of this playing round. Using these data, the player may form an opinion about a total number of wagers to be drawn by the current instant of time in the current playing round and about the number of wagers placed in a given playing round by other players after his or her previous wager has been placed in the same round. This information is of importance in cases where information about a histogram received by the player fails to contain data about the last wagers, that is, this information is not the most topical (see above). Besides, given concluding game reports that contain data about each processed wager and are disseminated by the game organizer upon completion of each playing round, said additional information may be used by any player to check the playing status of any his or her wager and to make sure of the correctness of drawing his or her wager in any playing round.

This version of the game method may be further modified to include the case where at every wager drawing iteration, the data display means of the players is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round.

In this modification, information about the number of the current wager drawing iteration and the number of the current playing round is communicated not only to the data display means of a player whose wager is processed at the current iteration but also the data display means of other players. As a result, other players possess information about dynamics of signal flow with wagers to be placed.

In yet another modification of the claimed game method, at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration, is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the playing status of this wager, said status being revealed at this iteration.

In this modification of the game method, each player gets from the playing system, in response to the placing of his or her wager, information about the current playing status of this wager, said status occurring right after the wager has been processed by the iteration-and-analytical process. Generally, the playing status of the wager at the moment of completing its processing iteration by the iteration-and-analytical process may take one of three states - "losing wager", "winning wager" or "stand to win". This information is of importance in cases where information about a histogram received by the player fails to contain data about the last wagers, that is, this information is not the most topical (see above), and may be taken into consideration by the player when deciding subsequent actions.

In still another modification of the game method, at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the completion or continuation of the playing round as a result of executing this iteration.

In this modification of the game method, each player, in response to the placing of his or her wager, gets, along with information about a histogram, also information about whether his or her wager completes the current playing round. This information is of importance in cases where information about a histogram received by the player fails to contain data about the last wagers, that is, this information is not the most topical (see above), and may be taken into consideration by the player when deciding subsequent actions.

In yet another embodiment of the claimed game method, signals carrying information to be communicated to the data display means of the players contain signals with information of advertising nature.

In accordance with this embodiment, signals with an advertising information may be communicated, in particular, at every wager drawing iteration to a player whose information about the wager is processed at this iteration and/or, e.g., upon completion of each playing round when the players receive signals with the drawing outcome information. In so doing, some or all elements and/or groups of elements of the game set are assigned, under agreement with an advertiser, to particular advertisers and/or groups of goods and services, in such a way that, when placing a wager on one of such elements, the player will be provided with an advertising information corresponding to this game set element. This embodiment allows to conduct iteration-and-analytical games using financial resources allotted by advertisers in order to carry on advertising campaigns.

Further embodiment of advertising iteration-and-analytical games consists in that a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of an advertising information to be communicated to the player in response to his or her wager.

In this embodiment, a wager price expressed in the playing points in advertising games is set to be proportional to a maximum body of information to be communicated to the player in one advertisement. For instance, in the games with wagers costing 1 point, an advertising information body must not exceed 3 kilobytes, whereas in the games with wagers costing 5 points, a maximum body of an advertising information to be communicated to the player is limited to 15 kilobytes (including graphics). If every fact of communicating the advertising information to the players is paid by an advertiser in proportion to the volume of an advertisement communicated, then winning points may be evaluated with money equivalents, with the result that the game organizer is able to conduct free-of-charge (for participants) advertising games with wager prices in terms of arbitrary points, and subsequent exchange of sums of winning points for money or material winnings the cost of which is proportional to these sums of winning points. In such cases, when selecting a particular game from a set of games characterized by a wager price, both players and advertisers are able to pre-evaluate levels of their advertising and cost load.

Yet another embodiment of advertising iteration-and-analytical games consists in that an advertising information to be communicated to a particular player is selected with regard to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of this player.

In this embodiment of an advertising game, selection of the content and subject orientation of an advertising information is carried out in accordance with social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of the players. To this end, on the registration in the advertising game, every player fills in a questionnaire of personal data determining his or her social and demographic signs (age, sex, marital status, residence, education, employment, etc.) and consumers' interest in the advertising of particular goods and services. Information received from advertisers is classified according to social and demographic signs and consumers' interests of this player. Such approach ensures address dissemination of an advertising information in accordance with the known conception of direct marketing (see, Mary Jo Fahey. Web-Advertising and Marketing by Design. Microsoft Press, 1998), rises a price of servicing the advertisers and promotes an increased interest in the advertising game of potential players.

In still another embodiment of the claimed game method, in the generation and feedback-transmission of signals with information about a wager, the player generates and feedback-communicates signals with information contained in his or her personal message which, in the course of the playing round and upon its completion, are communicated to the data display means of the players.

In this embodiment, each player may communicate to the game device, along with information about a wager to be placed, his or her personal information message, using feedback channels. Each message of this kind is introduced to a list of messages which is formed during the playing round, and may be accompanied by a playing alias, a serial number of iteration at which this message was received, and a value of the wager made. The list of messages so formed is communicated to the players during the current playing round (e.g., in response to the next wager to be placed, together with information about a histogram), memorized upon the playing round and communicated to the players together with information about the results of the completed playing round. Each message may be limited as to duration (for voice messages) or information capacity (for text messages); e.g., up to 10 seconds of sounding for a voice message or up to 40 printed characters for a text message. Application of this embodiment in practice allows the players, as the drawing proceeds, to comment upon their wagers, those of competitors, the game progress as a whole, and to exchange opinions and remarks, thus making the game more lively and attractive for the players.

This embodiment is realized in a further modification in which a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of one information message to be communicated by the player through feedback channels.

This modification makes it possible to conduct interactive games involving wagers, in which a wager price for each player is not only a price for the wager placing and processing but also a price for the dissemination among the players of his or her personal information message of a predetermined body. One of the possible winning results in such a game may consist in that the game organizer obligatory sends a winner's personal message to all the players, said message having information capacity to be determined by a prize size.

Factors of sporting rivalry and entertainment of the iteration-and-analytical game may be enhanced when using not only intellectual but also physical abilities of a human being.

This is provided by an embodiment of the claimed basic game method and all its aforementioned versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals of activated sensitive elements of the data display means.

In this embodiment, it is important that the players be able not only to quickly analyze a changing pattern of the quantitative wager distribution and, with regard to their wagers placed earlier, correctly decide how to place new wagers, but also correctly realize these decisions by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen, not others. In order to wager, each player uses an individual signal generator that generates, when in on position, a driving signal to activate sensitive elements of the screen, and an identifying signal to identify a given player. In a particular case, the driving signal may generate the identifying signal when acting on the screen sensitive elements and/or the screen information field; in this case, a code identifying the player may be used in the form of a physical address of the individual data display means.

If the screen is located within a specified distance from the player and activation of its sensitive elements is carried out by a directed sending of the driving signal to a sensitive element, this realization implies in fact that the players should select targets from a set of those displayed on the screen and hit them with directed driving signals. Thus, the game makes use of analytical capabilities of a human being and its physical abilities to hit distant targets. A generator's identifying signal determines the belonging of the wager to be placed to a particular player; therefore, a miwagern hit in the target which does not correspond to that selected by the player at a given moment results in the placing of a wrong wager, whereas missing any one of the selected targets does not affect in any way the quantitative wager distribution and the game budget to be determined by the number of wagers placed.

More stringent requirements to abilities of the players to hit selected targets are specified in an embodiment of the claimed game method in which a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals which identify the players; in the presence of an identifying signal and the absence of a corresponding activated signal of the sensitive element as a signal containing information about the wager, a signal with an information code which corresponds to one of N information codes of the game set elements is generated and used.

In this embodiment of the claimed game method, as distinguished from the foregoing one, each attempt to place a new wager by generating the driving and identifying signals results in the change of a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements, since even in case of generating the driving and identifying signals without activating at least one of sensitive elements of the screen (that is, in case of missing any one of the selected targets, as in the foregoing example), a signal with a wager code is synthesized by the playing system on behalf and at the expense of a given player.

A further development of the claimed game method is associated with the fulfillment of a condition of the wager drawing completion.

In a particular embodiment of the wager game method called, as in the prior art method, "Force of Zero", at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed while processing a signal containing information about a wager on the only game set element with the information code of which in the iteration-and-analytical process of this playing round no signal was correlated before the processing of the latter signal.

In this embodiment of the basic game method, there may be used the rule of a prize fund distribution as disclosed in the description of the prior art method, according to which the aforementioned only element of the game set is considered as a winning element in the completed playing round, and the whole prize fund is transferred to a player whose wager has completed the playing round. Such rule ensures instantaneousness of the game for the players, since it allows to detect a winner right after processing of his or her wager. However, as indicated above, in the claimed method versions that provide for the absence of a methodical random factor of the wager placing, this rule must be either supplemented with a condition of placing a certain number of wagers for a qualified participation in the game or replaced by another rule that helps to avoid states of "insurmountable hang-up" of the wager drawing.

In another particular embodiment of the claimed game method called, as in the prior art method, "Force of Minimum", at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes each correlating with only one signal in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one such information code and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.

In another particular embodiment of the both game method versions called, as in the prior art method, "Force of Minimax", at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which the greatest and the least number of signals have been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one information code with which the least number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, of only one information code with which the greatest number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.

When conducting the games "Force of Minimum" and "Force of Minimax", there may be used the rule of a winner determination and a prize fund distribution as disclosed in the description of the prior art method, according to which the only game set element on which a minimum number of wagers is placed is considered as a winning element in the completed playing round, and the whole prize fund is distributed among these winning wagers. Such the rule helps to avoid states of "insurmountable hang-up" of the wager drawing.

In yet another particular embodiment of the both game method versions which may, by analogy with the aforementioned embodiments, be called "Force of Maximum", at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which the greatest number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one such information code and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.

When conducting the games "Force of Maximum", there may be used the rule of a winner determination and a prize fund distribution, under which only those wagers in the completed playing round are considered as winning wagers which were placed on the game set element with the greatest number of wagers and which permitted excess of the value of absolute maximum as compared to the nearest value fixed in this round. For example, if, in the completed playing round, absolute maximum was fixed on the element # 4 and the maximum value equaled 8, while the nearest number of wagers equal to 6 was fixed on the elements # 2 and # 7, then two wagers are considered as winning wagers in this round, that is the seventh and the eighth in succession from the number of wagers placed on the element # 4. This rule encourage each player to wager on maximum (maxima) and complete the playing round in the availability of a situation that is potentially winning for him or her, thus making the states of "insurmountable hang-up" of the wager drawing impossible. Apparently, this rule may be used in the game with the drawing completion condition on the "Force of Minimax" principle.

As in the games "Force of Zero", the games "Force of Minimum", "Force of Minimax" and "Force of Maximum" may make use of other rules of a winner determination and a prize fund distribution that differ from those mentioned above; such rules must provide for the impossibility of arising such situations like "insurmountable hang-up" of the wager drawing.

This object is solved with the achievement of a total result when using a device for the implementation of the basic game method, said device comprising (with reference to FIG. 1) a game initialization unit (1) connected via a data dissemination unit (2) to one of inputs of an input/output processor (3) which is connected with its output to a recognition and identification unit (4); a wager payment unit (5); a wager registration unit (6); a drawing controller (7); a winning-logic unit (8); and a recording unit (9) which are connected in series; a round counter (10) connected to the second input of the wager registration unit (6) and to the second output of the drawing controller (7) connected with its second input to the output of the game initialization unit (1); a wager drawing processor (11) interconnected with the drawing controller (7); a wager registration confirmation unit (12) connected to the input of the input/output processor (3) and to the second output of the wager registration unit (6); a wager generation unit (13) connected to the output of the game initialization unit (1) and interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4); a long-term memory unit (14) connected to the outputs of the recording unit (9) and the wager registration confirmation unit (12) and interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4) and the wager payment unit (5) which is connected to the output of the game initialization unit (1); a personal playing account access unit (15) and an outcome review unit (16) which are connected to corresponding outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4) and interconnected with the long-term memory unit (14) and the input/output processor (3); a timer (17) connected to the drawing controller (7), the wager payment unit (5), the recording unit (9), and the long-term memory unit (14); a drawing display unit (18) included between the drawing controller (7) and the input/output processor (3); registration-playing terminals interconnected with the input/output processor (3), said terminals having a drawing display controller (19) included between the drawing controller (7) and the drawing display unit (18) and connected to the second output of the game initialization unit (1); and data display means (20) connected to the outputs of the input/output processor (3), the second input of the drawing display unit (18) being connected to one of the outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4).

Below, the claimed device is called, for short, a basic device.

A basic device may be used to implement a version of the basic game method in which at every iteration of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players (claim 2); and also used to implement a modification of the basic game method in which at the predetermined iterations of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players (claim 3).

To implement a modification of the claimed game method in which the numbers of iterations, in the execution of which signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated to data display means of some or all players, are assigned with regard to signals of the players which contain a request for the presentation of information about a histogram, the basic device is modified such that a drawing display controller (19) is connected to the output of a recognition and identification unit (4).

The basic device and its modification mentioned above may also be used to implement other versions and modifications of the game method, in which:

the data display means is provided with signals carrying information about a histogram that are generated with regard to information about a wager processed at the wager drawing iteration last-executed by the moment of signal transmission (claim 5);
among signals carrying information about a histogram to be displayed on the data display means, there are separated those signals that carry data about wagers taken into account in this histogram and registered on behalf of the player whose data display means is provided with signals carrying information about a histogram (claim 6);
among signals carrying information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry identification data about the belonging of a wager to a particular player, with respect to each wager taken into account in this histogram (claim 7);
among signals carrying information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry data about a serial number of each wager taken into account in this histogram, said number being determined by the number of iteration at which this wager was processed by the iteration-and-analytical process in a given playing round (claim 8);
at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration in the current playing round, is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round (claim 9);
at every wager drawing iteration, the data display means of the players is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round (claim 10);
at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the playing status of this wager, said status being revealed at this iteration (claim 11);
at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration, is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the completion or continuation of the playing round as a result of executing this iteration (claim 12).

To implement embodiments of the claimed game method in which signals carrying information to be communicated to the data display means of the players contain signals with information of advertising nature (claim 13); and a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of an advertising information to be communicated to the player in response to his or her wager (claim 14), the claimed device additionally comprises an advertiser's interface unit (21) interconnected through communication lines with an advertisement circulation unit (22) which is connected to a game initialization unit (1) and included between a recognition and identification unit (4) and an input/output processor (3).

To implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which an advertising information to be communicated to a particular player is selected with regard to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of this player (claim 15), the aforementioned version of the claimed device is modified such that said advertisement circulation unit (22) is interconnected with a long-term memory unit (14).

The basic device and its modifications mentioned above may be used to implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which, in the generation and feedback-transmission of signals with information about a wager, the player generates and feedback-communicates signals with information contained in his or her personal message which, in the course of the playing round and upon its completion, are communicated to the data display means of the players (claim 16), and also to implement a version of this embodiment in which a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of one information message to be communicated by the player through feedback channels (claim 17).

To implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals of activated sensitive elements of the data display means (claim 18), the claimed device is modified to comprise signal generators (23) connected to input ports of a data display means (20), an input port of each data display means (20) containing a screen with N built-in sensitive elements, outputs of the data display means (20) being connected, through feedback channels, to an input/output processor (3).

The same modification of the device serves to implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals which identify the players; in the presence of an identifying signal and the absence of a corresponding activated signal of the sensitive element as a signal containing information about the wager, a signal with an information code which corresponds to one of N information codes of the game set elements is generated and used (claim 19).

In accordance with the present invention, the game method and its versions, modifications and embodiments with a condition of the wager drawing completion called "Force of Zero" (claim 20) may be carried out by using the claimed basic device or its respective versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24) connected with its outputs to driving inputs of flip-flops (25) which are connected with their outputs to inputs of a "logical AND" gate (26) connected with its output to initializing inputs of the flip-flops (25).

In this modification of the claimed device, an opportunity of accumulating in the processor (11) of absolute quantitative data about a wager distribution on the game set elements is not provided for; this task is accomplished by means of a drawing controller (7).

Another modification of the device for carrying out the claimed game method and its versions, modifications and embodiments with a condition of the wager drawing completion called "Force of Zero" is based on the use of the clamed basic device or its respective versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24) connected with its outputs to inputs of counters (27) which are connected with their outputs, via comparison units (28), to inverse inputs of a "logical AND" gate (29) which is connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to a data bus (30).

In this modification of the device, as in all modifications set forth below, a wager drawing processor (11) is entrusted with accumulation of absolute quantitative data about a wager distribution on the game set elements.

In accordance with the present invention, the game method and its versions, modifications and embodiments with a condition of the wager drawing completion called "Force of Minimum" (claim 21) may be carried out by using the claimed basic device or its respective versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28) and a 1-comparison unit (31); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); an "exclusive OR" gate (32) with inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding 1-comparison unit (31); a "logical AND" gate (33) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (29) and (32); and an encoder (34) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding 1-comparison unit (31), said gate (33) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27) and to a control input of the encoder (34); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to a data bus (30).

In accordance with the present invention, the game method and its versions, modifications and embodiments with a condition of the wager drawing completion called "Force of Minimax" (claim 22) may be carried out by using the claimed basic device or its respective versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28), a minimum-comparison unit (35), and a maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); a first "exclusive OR" gate (32-1) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding minimum-comparison unit (35); a first "logical AND" gate (33-1) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (29) and (32-1); a second "exclusive OR" gate (32-2) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a second "logical AND" gate (33-2) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (33-1) and (32-2); a first encoder (34-1) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding minimum-comparison unit (35); a second encoder (34-2) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a minimum-counter (37) coupled to the output of the gate (33-1), said minimum-counter (37) being connected with its output to the input of each of minimum-comparison units (35); and a maximum-counter (38) coupled to the output of the gate (32-2); said maximum-counter (38) being connected with its output to the input of each of maximum-comparison units (36); said gate (33-2) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27), (37), (38); said gate (33-1) being connected with its output to a control input of the first encoder (34-1); said gate (32-2) being connected with its output to a control input of the second encoder (34-2); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to a data bus (30).

In accordance with the present invention, the game method and its versions, modifications and embodiments with a condition of the wager drawing completion called "Force of Maximum" (claim 23) may be carried out by using the claimed basic device or its respective versions, modifications and embodiments, in which a wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28) and a maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); an "exclusive OR" gate (32) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (33) with two inputs coupled to outputs of the gates (29) and (32); an encoder (34) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a maximum-counter (38) coupled to the output of the gate (32), said maximum-counter (38) being connected with its output to the input of each of the maximum-comparison units (36); a 3-bit shift register (41) coupled to the output of the gate (32), first, second and third outputs of said register being each connected to the corresponding input of a "logical AND" gate (42) with a first direct and a second and a third inverse input; a pre-maximum-counter (40) coupled to the output of said gate (42); said gate (33) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27), (38), (40); said gate (32) being connected with its output to a control input of said encoder (34); second outputs of said counters (27) being connected to a data bus (30).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings serve to explain the principles of the present invention:

FIG. 1 is a function diagram of a wager game device;

FIG. 2 shows examples of displaying a quantitative wager distribution on game set elements on the data display means.

FIG. 3 is a function and logic circuit of a wager drawing processor (11) for a particular embodiment of a device realizing a modification of a "Force of Zero" method, without accumulation in the processor (11) of absolute quantitative data about a wager distribution on the game set elements.

FIG. 4 is a function and logic circuit of a wager drawing processor (11) for a particular embodiment of a device realizing a modification of a "Force of Zero" method, with accumulation in the processor (11) of absolute quantitative data about a wager distribution on the game set elements.

FIG. 5 is a function and logic circuit of a wager drawing processor (11) for a particular embodiment of a device realizing a modification of a "Force of Minimum" method.

FIG. 6 is a function and logic circuit of a wager drawing processor (11) for a particular embodiment of a device realizing a modification of a "Force of Minimax" method.

FIG. 7 is a function and logic circuit of a wager drawing processor (11) for a particular embodiment of a device realizing a modification of a "Force of Maximum" method.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In the following description of a device to implement the claimed wager game method, when characterizing functional units, elements and a description of their operation, use is made of highly specialized terms and designations which are due to applications to be addressed by these units. Structural elements and principles of operation of iteration-and-analytical processor units are set forth in more detail using terms of function and logic circuits accepted in digital electronics; in so doing, auxiliary, general-system and service tasks (conversion of data formats and commands, communications protocols, memory addressing, generation of system messages and commands, etc.) are only mentioned as needed to define more exactly functions of units when they address certain applications.

It should be understood that the invention is not limited to the scope of accepted terminology, and each term or designation used encompasses all equivalent elements and units that operate in a similar way and are used to perform the same functions.

A function circuit of a basic wager game device set forth in FIG. 1 comprises a game initialization unit (1) connected via a data dissemination unit (2) to an input/output processor (3). An internal information output of said processor is coupled with in-series connected a recognition and identification unit (4), a wager payment unit (5), a wager registration unit (6), a drawing controller (7), a winning-logic unit (8), a recording unit (9), and a long-term memory unit (14). The game initialization unit (1) is also connected with its outputs to the wager payment unit (5), the drawing controller (7), a drawing display controller (19), and a wager generation unit (13) which is interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4) (here and throughout the text the term "interconnected" is to be understood as the availability of communication channels for the data exchange). The second output of the wager registration unit (6) is connected, via a wager registration confirmation unit (12), to the input/output processor (3). The drawing controller (7) is interconnected with a wager drawing processor (11) and connected to the drawing display controller (19) and a round counter (10) which is connected to the second input of the wager registration unit (6). The drawing display controller (19) is connected to a drawing display unit (18) which in turn is connected to one of outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4).

The long-term memory unit (14) is interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4), the wager payment unit (5), a personal playing account access unit (15), and an outcome review unit (16), said personal playing account access unit (15) and outcome review unit (16) are in turn interconnected with the input/output processor (3) and coupled with the outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4), said recording unit (9) and wager registration confirmation unit (12) are connected to corresponding inputs of the long-term memory unit (14). The input/output processor (3) is connected through external communication channels to registration-playing terminals (not shown in FIG. 1), external outputs of the input/output processor (3) being connected to data display means (20) of the players.

Synchronization of operation of the device elements and units is ensured by a timer (17) which is connected to units and elements requiring synchronization (these connections are not shown in FIG. 1). Moreover, an output of the timer (17) is connected to the controller (7), the recording unit (9), the wager payment unit (5), and the long-term memory unit (14).

The basic device is designed to implement the claimed basic game method. Detailed specification of functions and internal structure of the basic device units, as well as incorporation of some additional units and/or connections in the basic device enable realization of all versions and modifications of the basic game method in accordance with the present invention.

As the game starts, its operator forms a game set of N>1 elements and specifies conditions of the game conduction, by entering from a console via a program interface to the electronic memory of a game initialization unit (1):

N non-repeating information codes, each one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements;
a condition of the game completion;
a wager price;
the game regulations consisting of the rules for the determination of winning wagers according to a quantitative wager distribution and the rules for the generation and distribution of a prize fund;
a program for the control of communication of data about a histogram to the data display means of the players (for short, hereinafter referred to as a "histogram display program".)

In the basic device, the histogram display program is designed to assign and/or form a delay in the communication of data about a histogram to the data display means of the players with respect to the number of each iteration to be executed by an iteration-and-analytical process, said delay characterizing the topical nature of information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means of the players.

From a game initialization unit (1), the introduced information about the game is communicated to a data dissemination unit (2) where it is converted into a message format about the game set contents and the game specification, with the invitation to wager, said invitation entering an input/output processor (3) for the communication, through external communication channels, to data display means (20) and registration-playing terminals (not shown in FIG. 1). At the same time, a wager price is communicated to a wager payment unit (5); information code of the game set elements are communicated to a drawing controller (7) and a wager generation unit (13); a condition of the game completion and the game regulations are communicated to a drawing controller (7); a histogram display program is communicated to a drawing display controller (19). As a result, the controllers (7) and (19), the wager payment unit (5) and the wager generation unit (13) are aligned to the game specified by an operator. In so doing, the drawing controller (7) performs the alignment of a wager drawing processor (11) to information codes of the game set elements and a specified condition of the drawing completion, and also the alignment of a winning-logic unit (8) to specified game regulations.

The input/output processor (3) converts signals received from internal units into signals for communication through external communication lines to peripheral units which may be computer interface lines, analog and digital telephone channels, communication links of local and global computer networks and on-line services, asynchronous communication links of cable TV networks, etc. Signals received from peripheral units through external communication channels are converted by the input/output processor (3) into signals suitable by types and formats for the dissemination and processing by internal functional units of the device.

At the stage of the game initialization, the processor (3) converts a message about the game set contents and the game specification received from the data dissemination unit (2), into data communication signals in accordance with standards and protocols accepted in external communication links and networks used, and then communicates these signals through external communication channels to registration-playing terminals at a preset repetition frequency and/or on their requests.

The game initialization unit (1) may be used in the form of a computer terminal with a console and main memory, e.g. a personal computer. The data dissemination unit (2) may be made as a dedicated main memory array of this terminal under control of a special program. The input/output processor (3), depending upon types of interfaces, communication channels and networks applied, may be used in a form of serial and parallel computer ports; network interface boards; modems and modem pools; controllers and adapters of integrated-service digital telephone networks (ISDN); controllers of asynchronous cable TV networks; specialized telecommunication processors; computer network servers, jointly with relevant hardware-software drivers, in particular Internet servers.

A registration-playing terminal is used for the registration of players, input of wager data and output of required messages and drawing outcomes. These functions may be performed by touch-tone telephone sets, electronic terminals of points of sales of lottery coupons, terminals for servicing credit, banker's and smart-cards, discount card service terminals, video-terminals of asynchronous cable networks, personal computers and terminals of local, corporate and global computer networks and on-line services, etc.

Having received, from the processor (3) to a registration-playing terminal, signals carrying information about the game set contents and game specifications, a user of the registration-playing terminal selects one of the following three modes of interaction with the device proposed by the data dissemination unit (2): a personal playing account access mode, a drawing outcome review mode or a wager placement mode, while sending a corresponding signal through feedback channels to the processor (3).

Signals received through feedback channels are communicated, following conversion of types and formats, by the input/output processor (3) to the recognition and identification unit (4) which recognizes one of the above three modes of interaction with the registration-playing terminal.

A personal playing account access mode is initialized on request of either the player or the recognition and identification unit (4), is executed by means of a dialog with the registration-playing terminal through the input/output processor (3) in cooperation with the long-term memory unit (14), and includes the following procedures:

registration of the player while opening the personal playing account;
entering, by the player, of payment resources used for the wager payment in the personal playing account;
withdrawing, by the player, of payment resources from the personal playing account for use beyond the game;
review, by the player, of a register of the personal playing account;
introduction, by the player, of changes into his or her personal data.

In any case, after the recognition and identification unit (4) has recognized the payment registration mode, signals received through feedback channels from the registration-playing terminal are converted in the processor (3) from formats of communication through external lines into formats for communication through internal links of the device and entered a personal playing account access unit (15) which carries on a dialog with a particular registration-playing terminal via the processor (3) and a connection established through external communication channels. When initializing the four last-mentioned procedures of the personal playing account access mode, the personal playing account access unit (15) carries out authorization of rights of access of a registered player according to his or her personal identifier and password (see below).

In the course of registration procedure, a player is given a personal unique identifier which one-to-one corresponds to the number of the personal playing account opened in the long-term memory unit (14) and under which all wagers of this player are registered and processed subsequently. In so doing, the player is given a personal electronic switch of access to the personal playing account (password) in order to protect thereof against unauthorized access. Generally, a personal identifier and a password are sufficient to identify the player and his or her wagers; however, the registration process may also consist in that the player assigns his or her unique playing alias under which his or her wagers will appear in the data about the game outcomes, and fills in a questionnaire of personal data the content and purpose of which are defined at the discretion of the game organizer. For example, personal data may include a player's E-mail address for receiving messages about playing rounds completed, current changes in a playing account balance and other information sent by the game organizer, the number of the player's credit cards to be used for entering and drawing on payment resources from the playing account, social and demographic data, personal identification data for the payment of awards in cash, data about the player's personal interests for address distribution of encouraging prizes and advertising, etc. Personal data of the players and his or her playing alias are integral parts of the personal playing account and may change at any instance in the personal playing account access mode; here, the long-term memory unit (14) provides one-to-one correspondence between an alias and a personal identifier.

The registration procedure may provide for entering by the player, through a registration-playing terminal, of data about an individual data display means which will be used by this player to display information about a wager distribution histogram. These data determine a type and a physical address of the individual data display means to which the processor (3) must communicate histogram, and are obligatory player's personal data to be registered in the long-term memory unit (14) along with his or her personal playing account, in cases where the player's individual data display means fail to agree with his or her registration-playing terminal a type and a physical address of which are usually defined by the processor (3) independently when establishing a connection. For example, the player may use a touch-tone telephone set as the registration-playing terminal, and a radio-pager as the individual data display means, a type and address data of said radio-pager being specified by the player in the registration procedure.

Accomplishment of a procedure of entering by the player of payment resources used for the wager payment in the personal playing account, considerably depends on the mode of payment accepted in a particular game. If the wager payment is effected in monetary units, said entering is carried out according to known schemes of effecting payments in computer and telecommunication networks using debit, credit and other payment cards, bank transfers and money orders, banker's checks, etc. If a registration-playing terminal is used in the form of an electronic cash terminal of the point of sales of lottery coupons, a unique alphanumeric code of the coupon acts as an identifier of the personal playing account, and the payment for a wager is charged by the operator directly, thereby providing the alignment of registration and payment procedures.

Non-monetary forms of the wager payment, similar to those disclosed in the description of the prior art method, may be used in games conducted in discount-bonus, information and advertising networked systems. In case of a discount-bonus system, wagers may be paid with bonus points added to the players for the goods or services to be distributed by organizers of such a game. Settlement of playing budgets, prize funds and awards may also be done in bonus points. In case of information systems (telephone, television and computer networks, on-line services, etc.), wagers may be paid with resources of these systems in accordance with the known schemes of paying for their use, thereby resulting, in fact, in the drawing of information resources (duration of telephone calls and viewing of TV programs requiring payment, volumes of information to be communicated, etc.). Settlement of playing budgets, prize funds and awards is effected in units of measuring information resources to be drawn.

In cases of networked advertising and playing systems, registration and processing of each wager is accompanied by communicating to the player's registration-playing terminal and/or data display means of advertisements placed in an advertising and playing system by orders of advertisers. In this case, a wager price in the game may be defined by a volume of the player's required attention to an advertisement, said volume being proportional to an information capacity of the advertisement; the price of wagers to be placed may be measured in playing points the amount of which is proportional to a tolerable information body of one advertisement. So, entering by the player of payment funds in the personal playing account for advertising purposes is equivalent to furnishing by them an order for reviewing the advertisement of a certain information capacity expressed by a respective sum of playing points, whereas the game efficiency of each player is evaluated by the difference between winning and spent playing points.

Accomplishment of a procedure of withdrawing by the player of payment resources from the personal playing account for use beyond the game is also dependent on the mode of payment accepted in a particular game. In case of a monetary payment mode, use is made of known schemes of payment from personal playing accounts of the players: transfers to accounts of credit and/or debit cards, banker's accounts, money orders, payment check remits, payment in cash, etc. In case of a discount-bonus payment mode, funds are transferred from playing accounts to accounts of the players in discount-bonus systems. In case of advertising systems, positive differences between winning and spent playing points may be exchanged for encouraging prizes or money at a rate of exchanging playing points set by the game organizer.

A register of the personal playing account is an integral part of the account and constitutes a data file stored in the long-term memory unit (14), said file containing information about all movements of payment funds on the player's personal playing account. Accomplishment of a procedure of reviewing a personal playing account-register enables the player to follow all operations with his or her payment funds: entering and withdrawing of the funds on requests of the players; withdrawing of the funds for the payment wagers to be registered on behalf of the player; entering of the funds in respect of every winning wager to be registered on behalf of the player.

When accomplishing a procedure of introducing changes into personal data, the player may, on his or her own, change the content of fields in the registration form of his or her personal data.

When the long-term memory unit (14) introduces any new records or changes into personal playing accounts-registers, they are all accompanied by the date and time of their introduction in accordance with readings of a system timer (17).

A drawing outcome review mode is initialized on request of any user of a registration-playing terminal who is an optional registered player, and is carried out by means of an outcome review unit (16) through a dialog with the registration-playing terminal through the input/output processor (3) in cooperation with the long-term memory unit (14). In this mode, the user gets access to information of final protocols of all completed playing rounds.

Such protocols contain total data about the completed playing round, such as a time of start and completion of the playing round, the number of wagers placed, a playing budget amount, a prize fund amount, serial numbers of winning wagers and winning amounts, data about a final quantitative wager distribution on the game set, on which basis decisions to complete the drawing and distribute the prize fund were taken, etc. Besides, a final protocol contains data on each wager processed, including a wager serial number in the playing round, a wager value (that is, a game set identifier on which a wager was placed), a wager registration time in the playing system, a final playing status (winning-losing). The final protocol may, in respect of each wager, contain a playing alias unambiguously defining its belonging to a particular player. The final playing protocols enable any player or detached observer to restore and analyze dynamics of the iteration-and-analytical process and make sure of the correctness of the drawing process, thus increasing the degree of confidence in the game and promoting attraction of new players.

If the player chooses a wager placement mode, then in response to a message of the data dissemination unit (2) containing an invitation to wager, the player enters in the registration-playing terminal his or her identification data (an identifier and password) and a wager placed by him or her in the form of an information code of a corresponding game set element, said data being converted into signal of a certain type and format for communication through feedback channels to the input/output processor (3). A signal received and converted by the processor (3) is recognized by the recognition and identification unit (4) as a signal containing a player's identification data and a wager's information code. Then the unit (4) identifies the player, in cooperation with the long-term memory unit (14), while finding his or her identifier, a personal account number and an alias specimen corresponding to the identifier; compares this alias as to coincidence with the alias specimen and, if coincide, checks the state of balance of the personal playing account as to availability of payment resources necessary for the wager payment.

An important feature of identification associated with the specific nature of the claimed game method is the fact that in case of unsuccessful identification, the unit (4) transfers a received signal to a personal playing account access unit (15) thereby releasing itself for the identification of the next signal, and the unit (15) initializes, via the processor (3), through communication channels, a dialog session with the registration-playing terminal as to a more precise definition of identification data of the player and/or entering of additional payments to his or her personal account-register.

If the player realizes an opportunity of entrusting the device with placement of his or her wager, the player operating in a wager placement mode introduces (through the registration-playing terminal) into a signal generated for the processor (3), a wager inquiry code which, following successful recognition and identification by the unit (4), is interpreted as an instruction for a wager placing without participation of the player. As a result, the recognition and identification unit (4) sends a request for the wager to a wager generation unit (13) and, following receipt from the wager generation unit (13) of a wager in the form of an information code of a corresponding game set element, unit (13) replaces with this code a wager generation request code in the identified signal. The wager generation unit (13) may be realized on the basis of one of random number generation methods known in computer science. Initial adjustment of this unit for codes of game set elements is carried out by the game initialization unit (1).

In the case of successful completion of identification, a signal with a wager is transferred from the recognition and identification unit (4) to a wager payment unit (5). At the same time, the recognition and identification unit (4) in cooperation with the long-term memory unit (14) extracts from a registration form of a player's personal data those data concerning a type and address of a data display means used by the player, and communicates these data to a drawing display unit (18).

A wager payment unit (5), while interacting with a playing account-register of a player identified in the long-term memory unit (14), generates for the account-register a message about one wager price's write-off and sends this message to the long-term memory unit (14) for the introduction into the playing account-register and correction of a balance its payment funds. A format of the signal containing a wager is supplemented with data from a system timer (17) about the date and current time of a wager payment. Initial adjustment of the wager payment unit (5) for a wager price used in the game is carried out by the game initialization unit (1).

If the player uses a registration-playing terminal in the form of an electronic cash terminal of the point of sales of lottery coupons, a signal entering the input/output processor (3) contains a unique identifying code of a lottery coupon and a wager value in a form of an information code of a corresponding game set element or a special code of a wager generation request on behalf of the player. When processing such a signal, the recognition and identification unit (4), jointly with the long-term memory unit (14), creates for this signal a database address of the received signal, said address being unambiguously associated with an identification code of the lottery coupon paid by the player. Based on this address, the long-term memory unit (14) generates an account-register of the paid coupon and sends a signal to the wager payment unit (5) where this signal acquires the value of system time and date.

As a result, in all cases a signal at the output of the wager payment unit (5) contains three completed data fields: an account-register number, a wager value in a form of the information code of a game set element, and a wager payment date/time.

Due to one-to-one correspondence between a player's personal identifier, a number of his or her personal playing account-register and a database address under which the playing account-register is stored in the long-term memory unit (14), in the following description these notions will be used to denote equivalent notions, unless otherwise specified.

A recognition and identification unit (4), a wager payment unit (5), a payment registration unit (15) and an outcome review unit (16) may be realized as specialized imperative software modules located in the computer memory.

A long-term memory unit (14) is a database control system and, properly speaking, a database realized using relevant hardware-software, in particular high-performance disk drives of required capacity.

An output of the wager payment unit (5) enters the wager registration unit (6)where its format is supplemented with two data fields: a current round number field and an iteration number (wager number) field. To complete these fields, the wager registration unit (6) uses readings of a round counter (10) and those of its internal counter of iterations which zeros every time when readings of the round counter (10) change. A full copy of a signal so registered is transferred to a wager registration confirmation unit (12) which generates from this copy a signal carrying a message about the wager registration and transfers this message to the long-term memory unit (14) to enter registration data of the wager in an account-register, using an account-register number indicated in said copy, and also transfers a signal with a truncated copy of this message via an input/output processor (3) and communication channels to a registration-playing terminal from which a registered wager was placed. In this way, a message communicated by the wager registration confirmation unit (12) to the long-term memory unit (14) contains 5 completed data fields: a playing account-register database address, a wager value, a system time/date, a serial number of the current playing round and a serial number of the wager in the current playing round. This information is entered by the unit (14) in the playing account-register from which the current wager was paid. A truncated copy of the message to be communicated to the processor (3) about confirmation of the wager registration contains only a personal identifier, a wager value and system time, and enters a registration-playing terminal of the player whose wager is processed at the current iteration.

Then, the registered signal is transmitted from the wager registration unit (6) to a drawing controller (7). The controller (7) serves to load wager information codes contained in the received signals to a wager drawing processor (11), take decisions about the start and end completion of playing rounds, provide a drawing display controller (19) with information about wagers and current game status, and unload from a wager drawing processor (11) data about a final histogram in the completed round to a winning-logic unit (8). At all iterations, the controller (7) interacts with the wager drawing processor (11) which realizes the iteration-and-analytical process of the wager drawing.

A signal received from the wager registration unit (6) is truncated by the drawing controller (7) as to format to a signal containing only a database address and a wager information code, while translating a copy of non-truncated signal to the drawing display controller (19).

In the iteration-and-analytical game with a postponed outcome, where a wager status (winning-losing) is generally defined only upon completion of the playing round, the drawing controller (7) before the playing round, sequentially fills with signals coming from the wager registration unit (6) a variable-length temporary buffer storage formed in the controller (6) internal memory; in practice, it may be realized by dynamically distributing the main memory (see, e.g., J. Wokerley. Microcomputer Architecture and Programming. Translation from English. M., Mir, 1984). Upon completion of the playing round, the controller (7), before the start of the next round, sequentially unloads this buffer storage to the winning-logic unit (8) while extending a format of signals unloaded from the buffer storage, said signals carrying data about a serial number of the completed round and a registered serial number of the wager in this round, the latter number being defined by a serial number of the signal in the buffer storage.

Upon arrival of a regular wager information code from the controller (7), the wager drawing processor (11) carries out iteration of the code processing by updating a controller's memory-generated histogram of the wager distribution on the game set elements, while correlating this code with an information code of a corresponding game set element which is generated by the game initialization unit (1) and loaded in the wager drawing processor (11) by the controller (7) during initialization. Then the unit (11) determines the number of wagers correlated with a given game set element in the current playing round and checks, according to an updated histogram, a round completion condition, while generating for the controller (7), at the iteration end, a flag of the playing round completion in the form of 1-bit signal-flag F =0 (round not completed) or F=1 (round completed). A signal-flag F, received from the wager drawing processor (11) is translated by the drawing controller (7) to the drawing display controller (19).

With F=0, the drawing controller (7) loads the buffer storage with the next signal, whereas a wager information code contained in this signal is loaded to the wager drawing processor (11). When the signal F=1 comes, the controller (7) unloads from the wager drawing processor (11) information about a distribution histogram and revealed special points of this distribution (last zero, absolute minimum, absolute maximum, etc., depending on a drawing completion condition) in the completed round and communicates this information to the winning-logic unit (8) along with readings of the system timer (17) about a round completion time, at the same time instructing the round counter (10) to increase the round number by 1.

The same operations of the playing round completion are carried out by the controller (7) in case of the game with instantaneous outcome, when the status of each wager is defined upon completion of its processing with the iteration-and-analytical process (as an example, the game with a "Force of Zero" completion condition and the last wager of the round being a winning wager). In this case, however, a signal buffer storage in the memory of the controller (7) may not be created, since a signal-flag F indicative of the playing round completion which is generated by the wager drawing processor (11) to the controller (7) is also a winning flag in respect of the last wager processed (F=1 - winning wager, F=0 - losing wager). For this reason, to embody a game method with instantaneous outcome, the device in accordance with the present invention provides that the wager registration confirmation unit (12) delays generation of its signal before the completion of processing, by the wager drawing processor (11), of a wager corresponding to this signal, and that this signal is supplemented with the flag F (see, a dotted linkage between the units (7) and (12) in FIG. 1), in order to provide "instantaneousness" of the game for the players. As a result, in case of the iteration-and-analytical game with instantaneous outcome, the wager registration confirmation unit (12) produces a signal about winnings or loss of a placed wager and transmits this signal to the long-term memory unit (14) and the input/output processor (3) for a player whose wager was processed at a regular iteration. At the same time, in order to conserve the common character of the presentation, one may consider that in the device for games with instantaneous outcome the controller (7) generates a variable-length signal buffer storage.

The drawing display controller (19) controls the generation and communication of data about a histogram to the data display means in accordance with a histogram display program, which is assigned by the game organizer to the controller (19) via the initialization unit (1). In the basic device, a histogram display program only determines the topical character of information to be displayed, while assigning a delay as to the number of the last wager taken into account in the histogram with respect to the number of the current iteration or as to the time with respect to an instant of communicating said information. Generally, a histogram display program may depend both on the number of the current playing round, the number of the current iteration and the current features of the histogram to be generated.

As indicated above, when executing every iteration, the drawing controller (7) transmits to the drawing display controller (19) a complete signal received from the wager registration unit (6) and a signal-flag F characterizing the current drawing status (completed - not completed), following processing of a given wager. Moreover, in case of dependence of a histogram display program on the current histogram features, the drawing controller (7) transmits to the drawing display controller (19) signals carrying information about special points revealed by the wager drawing processor (11). Based on the data received, the drawing display controller (19) updates the current histogram generated in its internal memory, determines, according to a histogram display program, a delay of a histogram to be displayed, with respect to the current iteration, extracts said histogram to be displayed from the current histogram and transfers it to the drawing display unit (18). If a signal-flag F indicates completion of the current round (F=1), the drawing display controller (19) updates said histogram display program.

At each iteration, the drawing display unit (18) supplements data of the histogram to be displayed with data received from the recognition and identification unit (4) about a type and address of the data display means of a player whose wager was processed at the current iteration; communicates this information to the input/output processor (3) which converts the received signals in accordance with the applied data communication protocols and formats; and transfers them through communication channels to a given data display means.

The winning-logic unit (8) having received from the controller (7) quantitative data about a final wager distribution in the completed playing round along with data about special points, in accordance with the game regulations determines an element (or elements) of the game set and/or serial numbers of winning iterations, calculates a budget and prize fund of the completed round and a distribution of the prize fund among winning wagers. Then the unit (8) allows successive passage of signals unloaded from the buffer storage of the controller (7) to the recording unit (9), while comparing information codes contained in these signals with codes of winning elements of the game set and/or serial numbers of unloaded wagers with serial numbers of winning iterations, and assigning relevant winning statuses to signals unloaded from the buffer storage of the controller (7), provided that the codes and/or numbers coincide.

Based on the received signals with winning statuses, the recording unit (9) creates a consolidated protocol-register of the completed round which contains both general data of the playing round (time of start, time of completion, the number of wagers, codes of winning elements, the amount of a prize fund and its distribution on winning elements, database addresses, serial numbers of winning wagers and amounts of their winnings) and detailed data with respect to each wager (a serial number of the wager in the round, a database address, a wager value, a winning status, the amount of the winnings). The recording unit (9) may also be realized on the basis of a variable-length buffer storage which, under dynamic buffering conditions, may, for its add-in, use memory resources released by the buffer storage of the controller (7) in the course of its unloading.

A consolidated protocol-register of the completed round is transferred to the long-term memory unit (14) for storage and subsequent presentation to all those who so desire, via the outcome review unit (16) and the processor (3) through communication channels (with the replacement of database addresses by playing aliases of the players, for the purposes of information safety). Upon arrival of this consolidated protocol-register, the long-term memory unit (14), in accordance with this protocol, corrects accounts-registers of the players whose wagers were drawn in the completed round; the difference between accounts-registers of natural persons and playing coupons which wagers were introduced through registration-cash terminals, is of no importance.

In such way the processing of results of the completed playing round comes to an end; a new round begins with the arrival in the controller (7) of the first signal containing a new round number from the wager registration unit (6); just this moment is fixed by the controller (7) according to the system timer (17) as a time of a new round beginning.

As indicated above, a basic device may be used to implement a version of the basic game method in which at every iteration of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players (claim 2).

In this case, to implement a mode of data transmission to the data display means of some, but not all players, a file with personal data of each player stored in a long-term memory unit (14) is added, through a personal playing account access unit (15), with addresses of data display means of other players, said means requiring transmission of a histogram simultaneously with its transmission to a data display means of a given player. Data about these addresses are read by a recognition and identification unit (4) out of the long-term memory unit (14) upon completion of identification of the received signal carrying information about a wager and communicated to a drawing display unit (18), then, along with data about a histogram, to the input/output processor (3) for delivery. When conducting a team game, physical addresses of the data display means of members of each team may be stored in the internal memory of the input/output processor (3) which, upon arrival from a drawing display controller (19) of data about a histogram and identifier of the player whose wager was processed at the executed iteration, selects from the internal memory addresses of the data display means of all members of the team for which an identified player is acting, and communicates data about a histogram to the data display means at all selected addresses.

To implement a mode of data transmission to the data display means of all players, addresses of all data display means used in the game are stored in the internal memory of the input/output processor (3). Information about a histogram available from the drawing display unit (18) is communicated to all indicated addresses.

To implement a version of the basic game method in which at the predetermined iterations of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players (claim 3), a drawing display controller (19) is loaded, through a game initialization unit (1), with a histogram display program specifying explicitly and/or as a function of the current iteration number the numbers of those iteration at which information about a histogram is communicated to data display means of some or all other players. As in case with the basic device, the histogram display program may also explicitly and/or implicitly define a delay in the communication of data about a histogram with respect to the current iteration number or the time of data communication. Generally, the histogram display program may also depend on the peculiarities of the current histogram which are analyzed and revealed by the drawing display controller (19) itself and/or transferred to by the drawing display controller (19) from a wager drawing processor (11) through a drawing controller (7).

To implement a modification of the claimed game method in which the numbers of iterations, in the execution of which signals carrying information about a histogram are communicated to data display means of some or all players, are assigned with regard to signals of the players which contain a request for the presentation of information about a quantitative wager distribution (claim 4), use is made of a basic device modification in which the drawing display controller (19) is connected to one of outputs of a recognition and identification unit (4).

In this basic device modification, each signal to be processed in the recognition and identification unit (4), may contain a player's request flag for the display of a histogram on the data display means of some or all players. In the absence of such flag the device operates according to the aforementioned scheme of the basic device. However, in case that such a flag is detected, the recognition and identification unit (4) transfers it to the drawing display controller (19) that specifies a new iteration as a histogram display iteration for more than one player and produces a relevant signal to a drawing display unit (18). If, in so doing, a histogram transmission mode under consideration is carried out only in exchange for a wager to be assigned by the device on behalf of the player who has sent a request, the recognition and identification unit (4) interacts with a wager generator (13) and receives from the latter a generated wager code.

The basic device and its modification mentioned above may also be used to implement other claimed versions and modifications of the basic game method (see, claims 5-12), in which:

claim 5: the data display means is provided with signals carrying information about a histogram that are generated with regard to information about a wager processed at the wager drawing iteration last-executed by the moment of signal transmission (to this end, in a histogram display program there is specified a zero delay by the number of iteration which is the last-accounted in the histogram in respect of the number of the last-executed iteration);
claim 6: among signals carrying information about a histogram to be displayed on the data display means, there are separated those signals that carry data about wagers taken into account in this histogram and registered on behalf of the player whose data display means is provided with signals carrying information about a histogram (to this end, identifiers of all signals with wagers entering the drawing display controller (19) out of the drawing controller (7) are transmitted, together with data about wagers taken into account in the histogram to be displayed, to the data display means (20) through the drawing display unit (18) and the input/output processor (3), followed by the replacement of the identifies by physical addresses and comparison of these addresses as to each wager with an address of the data display means that receives signals, with the result that histogram-accounted wagers with coinciding addresses are marked);
claim 7; among signals carrying information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry identification data about the belonging of a wager to a particular player and/or a particular group of players, with respect to each wager taken into account in this histogram (to this end, the drawing display controller (19) generates a histogram in the form of distribution on the game set elements of identifiers-aliases of signals with wagers coming from the drawing controller (7), whereas the data display means (20) display each wager taken into account in the histogram as a unique graphic object allotted for each player by a personal playing account access unit (15) when performing a registration procedure - see, FIG. 2, where on the left, there is represented an example of displaying a histogram with the presentation of each wager as a rectangle with an alias for the game set of 5 elements indicated with the letters A-E);
claim 8: among signals carrying information about a histogram to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry data about a serial number of each wager taken into account in this histogram, said number being defined by the number of iteration at which this wager was processed by the iteration-and-analytical process in a given playing round (to this end, the drawing display controller (19) generates a histogram in the form of distribution on the game set elements of serial numbers of signals with wagers coming from the drawing controller (7) - see, FIG. 2, where on the right, there is represented an example of the histogram of iteration number distribution for the game set of 5 elements indicated with the letters A-E);
claim 9: at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration in the current playing round, is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round (to this end, a wager registration confirmation unit (12) transmits to the input/output processor (3) a full copy of a registered signal with the wager);
claim 10: at every wager drawing iteration, the data display means of the players is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round (to this end, at every iteration the drawing display controller (19) generates from a signal carrying information about a wager, said signal being transmitted by the drawing controller (7), a signal containing a wager number and a current round number and, through the drawing display unit (18) and the input/output processor (3), transmits this signal to the data display means (20) of all players);
claim 11: at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the playing status of this wager, said status being revealed at this iteration (to this end, a value of the current winning status of a processed wager, said value being revealed at every iteration by the wager drawing processor (11), is transmitted by the drawing controller (7) to the drawing display controller (19) which in turn transmits this value, along with information about a histogram, through the drawing display unit (18) and the input/output processor (3) to the data display means (20) of a player whose wager was processed at this iteration);
claim 12: at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration, is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the completion or continuation of the playing round as a result of executing this iteration (to this end, upon completion of each iteration, the drawing controller (7) transmits a signal-flag F generated by the wager drawing processor (11) to the drawing display controller (19) which translates this signal, along with information about a histogram, through the drawing display unit (18) and the input/output processor (3) to the data display means (20) of a player whose wager was processed at this iteration).

To implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which signals carrying information to be communicated to the data display means of the players contain signals with information of advertising nature claim 13), the basic device and its version mentioned above additionally comprise an advertiser's interface unit (21) interconnected through communication lines with an advertisement circulation unit (22) which is connected to a game initialization unit (1) and included between a recognition and identification unit (4) and an input/output processor (3).

Before the game starts, a game organizer enters through the game initialization unit (1) in the advertisement circulation unit (22) necessary data for an advertiser, said data defining rules and conditions of advertisement circulation among the players. Based on these rules and conditions, an advertiser enters information of their advertisements through the advertiser's interface unit (21) in a database of the advertisement circulation unit (22), while indicating for each advertisement a required amount of its transmissions to the players. Replenishment of the database of the advertisement circulation unit (22) is possible both before the game starts and in the course of the playing rounds. Upon receipt of a regular signal from the input/output processor (3), the recognition and identification unit (4) notifies accordingly the advertisement circulation unit (22) which selects from its database an advertisement and transmits it to the processor (3) for the transmission to the data display means of a player whose signal is identified in the unit (4), while reducing by 1 a remaining number of transmissions of this advertisement, so that when reaching 0, this announcement is not selected any more for transmission. An advertisement transmission may be carried out in each of the following three modes of a device - player interaction: a playing account access mode - along with information about a playing account register; a game outcome review mode - along with information of final playing protocols; a wager placement mode - along with information about a wager registration confirmation and/or with information about a histogram.

Different variants are possible for structuring an advertisement database of the advertisement circulation unit (22) and retrieving data to be transferred to the players of which a game organizer also notify advertisers when initializing the game, while loading a relevant information to the advertisement circulation unit (22) through the game initialization unit (1). For example, an advertisement database may be structured according to types of goods and services to be advertised, whereas data retrieval may be carried out at random according to the fact of arriving a signal from the unit (4). In another case, each type of goods and services to be advertised or each trademark correlates with a certain game set element or a group of elements, and the advertisement retrieval is carried out by the advertisement circulation unit (22) with regard to a good/service or a trademark to be defined according to a wager code entering the advertisement circulation unit (22) out of the recognition and identification unit (4) in the wager placement mode. For each advertiser, a database of the unit (4) contains a personal register with information as to every fact of advertisement transmission, said register being within the reach of an advertiser through the interface unit (21).

The advertiser's interface unit (21) may be realized on the basis of a personal computer with an interface program and communication means; the advertisement circulation unit (22) - on the basis of a database control system.

This version of the device may also be used to embody a modification of the basic game method under consideration, in which a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of an advertising information to be communicated to the player in response to his or her wager (claim 14).

In this case, a game organizer enters in the device through the game initialization unit (1) data about an information equivalent of the price of one wager expressed in units of measuring an advertising information, which are transmitted to the advertisement circulation unit (22) (this connection is not shown in FIG. 1) and used by this unit during interaction with the advertiser's interface unit (21) as a delimiter of an advertising information body when an advertisement enters a database of the advertisement circulation unit (22). For instance, if, at a wager price of 2 points, a 5 kilobyte information equivalent of an advertising information is set for 1 point, a capacity of one advertisement to be transmitted to the player in response to his or her wager may not exceed 10 kilobytes, and an encouraging prize for the winners in the game may be a free-of-charge transmission of their advertisements to the players when conducting subsequent playing rounds at the rate of 50 transmissions of one 10 kilobyte advertisement for each 100 winning points. Moreover, the game winners may be provided with an opportunity of selling, for real money (e.g., by electronic auction), of their rights in a free advertisement circulation, which is equivalent to the selling of winning points for real money.

To implement an embodiment of the claimed game method in which an advertising information to be communicated to a particular player is selected with regard to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of this player (claim 15), the device under consideration is modified such that the advertisement circulation unit (22) is interconnected with the long-term memory unit (14).

In this modification of the device, a database of the advertisement circulation unit (22) is structured according to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests. Personal questionnaires to be completed by the players in a playing account access mode through the unit (15) reflect social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of the players as users of advertising of certain types of goods and services. Sampling of an advertisement in the advertisement circulation unit (22) is carried out with regard to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of a particular player whose signal is processed by the recognition and identification unit (4) in cooperation with the long-term memory unit (14) where personal playing accounts and questionnaires of the players are stored.

The basic device and its versions and modifications mentioned above may be used to further embody the claimed game method in which, in the generation and feedback-transmission of signals with information about a wager, the player generates and feedback-communicates signals with information contained in his or her personal message which, in the course of the playing round and upon its completion, are communicated to the data display means of the players (claim 16). In this case, a player, when selecting a wager, enters from a registration-playing terminal his or her personal message in a text or sound form, said message being converted by the terminal into signals for communication and transmitted to the input/output processor (3) along with a signal carrying information about a wager. Then these signals, following successful recognition and identification in the unit (4) and wager payment in the unit (5), are transferred to the registration unit (6) from which they are transmitted, along with a copy of a registered signal carrying information about the wager, to a wager registration confirmation unit (12). In the wager registration confirmation unit (12) a personal message of the player whose wager was processed at the current iteration is entered, along with a player's alias, an iteration number and a wager value, in the current register of personal messages received in the current round; a full copy of this register is sent through the input/output processor (3) to a data display means of a given player. Upon completion of a playing round, the personal message register is transferred from the wager registration confirmation unit (12) to the long-term memory unit (14) from which it becomes available to all players through an outcome review (16).

To embody this modification, in which a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of one information message to be communicated by the player through feedback channels (claim 17), a game organizer enters in the device through the game initialization unit (1) data about an information equivalent of the price of one wager expressed in units of measuring a personal message information, which are transmitted to registration-playing terminals of the players through the input/output processor (3) and used as a delimiter of a personal message volume. For instance, if, at a wager price of 2 points, an information equivalent of 30 ASCII characters of a text message is set for 1 point, a capacity of one personal advertisement to be transmitted to the player in response to his or her wager may not exceed 60 ASCII characters for each 10 winning points, and game winners may be provided with an opportunity of selling, for real money (e.g., by electronic auction), of their rights in a free transmission of information messages, which is equivalent to the selling of winning points for real money.

To implement modifications of the claimed game method in which, in order to place wagers, the players use screens with built-in sensitive elements (claims 18 and 19), the basic device and its aforementioned versions and modifications are added with individual signal generators (23) connected to input ports of a data display means (20), an input port of each data display means (20) containing a screen with N built-in sensitive elements, outputs of the data display means (20) being connected, through feedback channels, to an input/output processor (3).

In the simplest case of embodying the claimed device, the data display means (20) are used in the form of displays of the players' personal computers; graphic images of the game set elements on display screens offer services of sensitive elements; each element is activated by clicking a mouse or joystick with an indicator aiming at this element (see, an example in FIG. 2 for a game on the plurality of 5 elements, where sensitive elements of the screen are represented by rectangles with the markers A-E). In this case, an individual generator (23) is used as a mouse or joystick together with a computer which generates a signal carrying information about a selected wager when clicking a mouse button if, and only if, in this moment a mouse's indicator aims at one of sensitive elements, and simultaneously generates an identifying signal containing a physical address of this computer and/or a player's identifier.

In another case, the data display means (20) are used as screens remote from the players within a specified distance; piezoelectric cells are used as sensitive elements; location of each sensitive element on the screen surface is marked with a unique graphic object-target (see, e.g. FIG. 2, where sensitive elements of the screen are represented by rectangles with the markers A-E); signal generators are used as solid objects (balls, darts, pucks, etc.) to be thrown into an individual screen of the player who tries to hit a selected target. When hitting one of the screen targets, an appropriate piezoelectric cell activates with the result that this data display means generates an output signal containing as a wager code and a player's identifying code, respectively, a code of an activated element of the screen and a code (physical address) of this data display means according to which a player's identifier is defined unambiguously.

In the application of this example to sports and intellectual games using data display means that are common for the players, an individual generator of each player generates a unique identifying signal recognizable by a receiver of such signals, when the generator comes into contact with a screen surface, with the result that a data display means, which is common for some or all players, generates an output signal containing as a wager code and a player's identifying code, respectively, a code of an activated element of the screen and a receiver-identified code of the individual generator.

In another embodiment of the device with screens remote from the players within a specified distance, receivers of a narrow-directed electromagnetic radiation are used as sensitive elements; location of each sensitive element on the screen surface is marked with a unique graphic object-target (see, e.g. FIG. 2, where sensitive elements of the screen are represented by rectangles with the markers A-E); individual generators are used as pulsed sources of the same narrow-directed electromagnetic radiation (e.g., said receivers may be used in the form of photocells, said sources - in the form of lasers). When using only individual data display means, an identifying signal contains a code of a particular data display means and is generated by the data display means itself when activating one of built-in sensitive elements on the screen. When using accessible data display means, radiation of each generator is modulated and/or polarized, whereas parameters of modulation and/or polarization unambiguously identify this generator, said parameters are detected by a radiated receiver such that at the output of a sensitive element, during its activation by a generator radiation, there is generated a combined signal carrying information about a code of an activated element, said code unambiguously corresponding to a wager code, and about parameters of modulation and/or polarization that correspond to a player's identifier.

In still another modification of the device, an individual generator is a source of signals with different physical nature, that is a probing signal designed to activate a sensitive element, and an identifying signal transferred to the data display means (20) through a separate communication channel simultaneously with the probing signal and combined with an output signal of the sensitive element, if only the latter appears after a specified short period (to be defined by a sensitive element speed of response) following a generator activation, thereby resulting in the generation of an ordinary combined signal carrying information about a wager, said signal being transmitted to the input/output processor (3).

A particular embodiment of such modification is a device in which piezoelectric plates-targets are used as sensitive elements of the screen remote from a player within a specified distance, said plates-targets having receives-detectors of electromagnetic waves; identifying generators are used as solid objects (balls, darts, pucks, etc.) with built-in radiators of weak electromagnetic waves. The players throw said objects into the plates-targets designated on the screen surface in the form of graphic images (see, e.g. FIG. 2, where sensitive elements of the screen are represented by rectangles with the markers A-F). Radiation of each generator is modulated by a wave of unique frequency recognizable by a receiver-detector, when the generator comes into contact with a plate-target, as an identifying signal of the generator, whereas a probing signal is a piezoelectric cell output signal arising when colliding the generator. As a result, a sensitive element output generates a combined signal carrying information about an individual code of the activated element, said code one-to-one corresponding to a wager code, and about a generator's modulating frequency which unambiguously corresponds to a player's alias.

In these embodiments of the claimed device, succession of wager processing is defined by the sequence of signals of activated sensitive elements; a possible target-missing with a generator's driving signal is disregarded at all. Such a possibility is taken into account in the modifications of the claimed game method in which succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of generation of identifying signals (claim 19). To carry out these modifications, with each activation of the individual generator (23), its identifying signal is memorized in the memory of the data display means (20) for a specified short period of time which is determined by a known speed of response of sensitive elements and during which signals of all other generators are not perceived. If, during this period, there appears an output signal of one of sensitive elements of the screen, this signal is combined with an identifying signal of the generator into a combined signal carrying information about a wager, followed by its processing in usual fashion. If, during this period, an output signal of a sensitive element of the screen does not appear (a case of "absolute" miss), an identifying signal of the generator (23) is transferred by the data display means (20) to a recognition and identification unit (4) where it is treated as a player's request for a wager generation on behalf of this player, with the result that a wager code for this signal is generated by a wager generation unit (13). For example, if the game device uses only individual data display means based on screens with piezoelectric cells, and signal generators (23) are solid objects to be thrown by the players into their screens, a part of each screen unoccupied with graphic objects-targets may be made as a sensitive surface of a (N+1) piezoelectric cell. When a thrown object hits this surface (that is, no target is hit), there is generated a screen output signal treated by the recognition and identification unit (4) as a request for a wager placement on behalf of the player whose data display means (20) generated said signal, thus resulting in a random wager generated by the wager generation unit (13) for this player.

In the aforementioned modifications of a the wager game device, there may be used different histogram display programs assigned by an initialization unit (1). The most competing game will correspond to a program of displaying the current (that is, the most topical) wager distribution histogram, at each wager drawing iteration, simultaneously to all players; each wager to be displayed on the histogram involves a flag recognizable by the players, said flag unambiguously identifiers the belonging of the wager to a particular player and/or particular group of players - members of the same team. In the example depicted in FIG. 2, on the left, such flag is a playing alias of the player. Other identifying flags of the wagers to be displayed may be the shape of a graphic object displaying the wager, and/or its color, and/or various special effects, e.g., flickering. As provided for in one version of the game method, an image of each wager on the histogram to be displayed may also contain a serial number of this wager (see Example 2, on the right).

To embody the claimed game method providing a wager drawing on the principle of "Force of Zero" (claim 20), a wager drawing processor (11) is assembled in accordance with a function and logic circuit represented in FIG, 3.

A controller (7) sends to a processor (11) a wager information code as a set of binary number bits which enters an input of a decoder (24) containing N 1-bit outputs. An input binary number corresponds to i-number of a game set element on which a wager is placed, so that the decoder (24) sets out on-bit at its i-output, leaving all remaining outputs zero. Each output of the decoder (24) is a driving input of a flip-flop (25), therefore on-bit at the i-output of the decoder sets Q output of the flip-flop (25-i) in the Q=1 state. Outputs of all N flip-flops (25) are supplied to N-input "logical AND" gate (26) at the F output of which on-bit emerges, if, and only if, the processor (11) processes a wager placed on the last "unoccupied" game set element. An output of the gate (26) is supplied to initializing inputs of all flip-flops (25) and also, as an output of the processor (11), - to the controller (7). Thus, signal F=0 does not change the states of the flip-flops (25) and serves for the controller (7) as evidence of a drawing continuation, so that the controller (7) must proceed with the current playing round, whereas signal F=1 re-sets all flip-flops (25) to 0, thus preparing the controller (7) for the wager processing in the next round, and gives instructions to the controller (7) about the current round completion.

In the scheme in FIG. 3, for each game set element, there is only memorized the fact of the availability in the playing round of at least one wager placed on this element, which is essentially enough for embodying a "Force of Zero" game method.

At the same time, if, depending upon the applied regulations of a prize fund, a winning-logic unit (8) and a recording unit (9) need data about a precise quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements, then in order to ensure this, the wager drawing processor (11) is assembled in accordance with a function and logic circuit represented in FIG. 4. Here, instead of a set of flip-flops, use is made of N binary counters (27-1), ..., (27-N) with null-comparison units (28-1), ..., (28-N). Each 1-bit output of the decoder (24) is an input of the binary counter (27) which accumulates a number of wagers placed in the current round on a corresponding game set element. Readings of each counter (27) are supplied to an input of the null-comparison unit (28) so that, when the input coincides with 0, the output of the null-comparison unit (28) is set to 1, if it does not coincide - is set to 0. Outputs of the comparison units (28) are supplied to a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs, whose output F is the output of the processor (11) to the controller (7). F=1, if, and only if, the processor (11) processes a code of the wager placed on the last "unoccupied" game set element. Besides, signal F is supplied to initializing inputs of the counters (27) for their re-set to an initial zero state. Thus, in case of F=0, the states of the counters (27) remain unchanged, and the controller must proceed with the current playing round. Signal F=1 re-sets all counters (27) to 0, thus preparing the processor (11) for the wager processing in the next round, and serves to the controller (7) an indication about the current round completion. To satisfy needs in full information about the current quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements, information of the counters (27) is transferred to the controller (7) over a data bus (30) under control of the controller (7).

To embody the claimed game method providing a wager drawing on the principle of "Force of Minimum" (claim 21), a wager drawing processor (11) is realized in accordance with a function and logic circuit represented in FIG. 5 which is a development of the scheme as depicted in FIG. 4. Here, a binary counter (27) also corresponds to each game set element, readings of the counter are additionally compared with 1 in a comparison unit (31). When an input binary number coincides with 1, the bit of a comparison unit (31) sets to 1, when it does not coincide - sets to 0. Outputs of units (31) are supplied to a N-input "exclusive OR" gate (32), whose output F1 takes a value of 1 when, and only when, just one input signal equals 1. Besides, outputs of all comparison units (31) are supplied to N inputs of an encoder-address former (34). Signals of null-comparison units (28) are processed, like in the scheme as depicted in FIG. 4, by a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs whose output F0 gives warning of the absence of zeroes in the wager distribution (when F0=1) or of their presence (when F0=0). To reveal the availability of the first nonzero global minimum in the current wager distribution, signals F0 and F1 are supplied to a two-input "logical AND" gate (33) whose output F takes a value of F=0 if, and only if, there is no nonzero global minimum, and a value of F=1 in case of its availability. Signal F is supplied to a control input of the encoder (33) so that, when F moves from the level F=0 to the level F=1, the encoder (34) yields a binary number corresponding to the number of the only nonzero input; with a reverse move, all output bits of the encoder (34) are set to 0. Moreover, signal F=1 re-sets the counters (27) to an initial zero state, thus preparing the processor for the wager processing in the next round. Thus, emergence of signal F=1 at the output of the wager drawing processor (11) is a flag of the current round completion for the controller (7); the output of the encoder (34) contains a binary number of the only game set element on which a minimum number of wagers has been placed, whereas signal F=0 is a flag of the current round continuation for the controller (7). As in the scheme depicted in FIG. 4, the controller (7) is able to read data about the current wager distribution out a the data bus (30).

To embody the claimed game method providing a wager drawing on the principle of "Force of Minimax" (claim 22), a wager drawing processor (11) is realized in accordance with a function and logic circuit represented in FIG. 6 which is a development of the scheme as depicted in FIG. 5. Here, an "element" counter (27) also corresponds to each game set element, however an output of each such counter is processed by three comparison units: (28), (35), and (36). The unit (28) carries out comparison with 0, the unit (35) - comparison with the output of a minimum-counter (37), the unit (36) - comparison with the output of a maximum-counter (38). Initialization of all counters is carried out by the processor's output F=1 upon completion of the regular round; all N "element" counters (27) are set to 0; an initial sum of the minimum-counter (37) is set to be equal to 1, that of the maximum-counter (38) is set to be equal to 3. Thus, in the beginning of each round the comparison unit (35) compares readings of "element" counters (27) with the number 1 (a value of the first nonzero global minimum), the comparison unit (36) - with the number 3 (a value of the first global maximum given a nonzero global minimum). Outputs of null-comparison units (28) are processed, as before, by a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs, whose output F0 takes a value F0=1 if there are no zeros in the wager distribution, and a value F0=0 if zeroes are present. Outputs of the minimum-comparison units (35) are supplied to corresponding inputs of a first encoder (34-1) and, besides, are processed by a first N-input "exclusive OR" gate (32-1). Outputs of the maximum-comparison units (36) are supplied to corresponding inputs of a second encoder (34-2) and, besides, are processed by a second N-input "exclusive OR" gate (32-2). As a result, the output F1 of the first gate (32-1) takes a value of I if, and only if, just one coincidence is present in the minimum-comparison units (35), and the output F2 of the second gate (32-2) takes a value of 1 if, and only if, just one coincidence is present in the maximum-comparison units (36). Signals F0 and F1 are supplied to a first two-input "logical AND" gate (33-1) whose output F3 takes a value of F3=1 if there is present the only nonzero minimum in the wager distribution, and a value F3=0 if it is absent. Signals F3 and F2 are supplied to inputs of minimum-counters (37) and maximum-counters (38) respectively, which actuate when the input moves from high bit to zero bit, thus supplementing an accumulated sum with 1 and fixing successive levels for a global minimum (an output of the counter (37)) and a global maximum (an output of the counter (38)). Moreover, signal F3 enters a control input of the first encoder (34-1), signal F2 enters a control input of the second encoder (34-2), with a binary number emerging at their output buses when a control signal moves from zero bit to high bit, said number corresponding to the number of the only nonzero bit at the data input. With a reverse move of the control signal, all bits at the output buses of the encoders (34) are set to 0. Thus, a nonzero binary number at the output of the first encoder (34-1) corresponds to the number of the game set element which is a wager distribution global minimum, whereas a nonzero binary number at the output of the second encoder (34-2) corresponds to the number of a game set element which is a wager distribution global maximum. Finally, signals F3 and F2 are analyzed by a second two-input "logical AND" gate (33-2) whose output F takes a value of F=1 when, and only when, just one nonzero minimum and just one maximum are present in the wager distribution.

As a result, the wager drawing processor (11) transfers, as its output data, to the controller (7) a binary number at the output bus of the first encoder (34-1), a binary number at the output bus of the second encoder (34-2), a binary number at the output bus of the counter (37), a binary number at the output bus of the counter (38), and a signal-flag F. A flag value F=1 is an indication of the current round completion sent to the controller; the output of the first encoder (34-1) contains a binary number of the game set element which is a wager distribution global minimum; the output of the second encoder (34-2) contains a binary number of the game set element which is a wager distribution global maximum; the output of the counter (37) contains the number of wagers placed on a global minimum; the output of the counter (38) contains the number of wagers placed on a global maximum. A flag value F=0 is an indication of the current round continuation sent to the controller; a binary number at the output bus of the counter (37) corresponds to a global minimum value to be checked; a binary number at the output bus of the counter (38) corresponds to a global maximum value to be checked; a nonzero binary number at the output bus of the first encoder (34-1) corresponds to the number of an element - a wager distribution global minimum found in the current wager distribution; a zero binary number at the output bus of the first encoder (34-1) means the absence of a global minimum in the current wager distribution; a nonzero binary number at the output bus of the second encoder (34-2) corresponds to the number of an element - a wager distribution global maximum found in the current wager distribution; a zero binary number at the output bus of the second encoder (34-2) means the absence of a global minimum in the current wager distribution. Moreover, the controller (7) is able to receive out of the processor (11), through a data bus (30), data about the current wager distribution on all game set elements.

To embody the claimed game method providing a wager drawing on the principle of "Force of Maximum" (claim 23), a wager drawing processor (11) is realized in accordance with a function and logic circuit represented in FIG. 7 which is a development of the scheme as depicted in FIG. 4. Here, an "element" counter (27) also corresponds to each game set element; an output of each such counter is processed by two comparison units: (28) and (36). The unit (28) carries out the comparison with 0, the unit (36) - the comparison with the output of a maximum-counter (38). Initialization of all counters is carried out by the processor's output F=1 upon completion of the regular round; all N "element" counters (27) are set to 0; an initial sum of the maximum-counter (38) is set to be equal to 2, that of the pre-maximum-counter (40) is set to be equal to 1. When an input binary number coincides with a design maximum value, an output bit of the comparison unit (36) is set to 1; when it fails to coincide so, this bit is set to 0. Outputs of null-comparison units (28) are processed, as before, by a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs, whose output F0 takes a value F0=1 if there are no zeros in the wager distribution, and a value F0=0 if zeroes are present. Outputs of the minimum-comparison units (35) are supplied to corresponding inputs of an encoder (34) and, besides, are processed by a N-input "exclusive OR" gate (32-1). Outputs of the maximum-comparison units (36) are supplied to corresponding inputs of an encoder (34) and, besides, are processed by a N-input "exclusive OR" gate (32) whose output signal F1 takes a value of 1 if, and only if, just one input signal equals 1.

Signal F1 is supplied to the input of the maximum-counter (38), which actuates when the input moves from high bit to zero bit, thus supplementing an accumulated sum with 1 and fixing at its output a successive level for a global maximum. Besides, signal F1 enters a control input of the encoder (34), with a binary number emerging at its output bus when a control signal moves from zero bit to high bit, said number corresponding to the number of the only nonzero bit at the data input. With a reverse move of the control signal, all bits at the output buses of the encoder (34) are set to 0. Thus, a nonzero binary number at the output of the encoder (34) corresponds to the number of the game set element which is a wager distribution global maximum. Signals F0 and F1 are analyzed by a two-input "logical AND" gate (33) whose output F takes a value of F=1 when, and only when, in the wager distribution there are no zeroes and just one global maximum is present.

Signal F1 is also supplied to an input of a 3-bit shift register (41) connected with its first, second and third outputs, respectively, with a first direct, first and second inverse inputs of a "logical AND" gate; an output signal F2 of said register thus equals 1 when, and only when, the current zero value of the signal F1 was preceded by values 0 and 1 in the first and second preceding clock times, respectively. Signal F2 is supplied to the input of a pre-maximum-counter (40), which actuates every time when the input moves from high bit to zero bit, thus supplementing an accumulated sum with 1 and fixing the achieved level of a value closest to a global maximum value. The register (41) is initialized by a control signal F=1.

So, a value of the output signal F=1 is evidence of the wager drawing completion at the current iteration; an output of the encoder (34) contains an address of the element - a wager drawing global maximum, that of the counter (38) - a global maximum value, that of a counter (40) - a value closest to the global maximum value, that is a pre-maximum value. Using maximum and pre-maximum values, the drawing controller (7), when unloading an internal buffer storage, determined wagers which afforded the excess of a global maximum over a pre-maximum. It is advisable to announce just these wagers as winning wagers in the completed playing round, which must be taken into account in the regulations of a prize-fund assignment and distribution for the game "Force of Maximum" (see, e.g., a playing round histogram in FIG. 2 where, in the placement of the wager # 9 on the element B, a winner is the wager # 8 that was placed on the element C by the player under the alias Alex).

Industrial applicability

The following examples deal with some particular cases of applying the claimed wager game method. It will be appreciated that these examples do not in any way encompass the whole range of possible applications.

Example 1. Games In Slot Machine Centers

Iteration-and-analytical games may be conducted using playing terminals in casinos and specialized slot machine centers. Traditionally, slot machines embody various "face-to-face" games, with a random outcome formed by a machine irrespective of actions taken by the player ("Slot Machine", "Dr. Black Jack", etc.). When using the claimed game method, a registration-playing terminal of the aforementioned device offers the services of a slot machine. Every player is registered through a terminal while receiving a playing alias, an identifier and a password to access the playing account; then he or she effects payment of an initial playing credit or buys a debit card which is activated, when entering into the game, to supplement the playing account, and finally he or she is given the opportunity to wager.

Some devices embodying different iteration-and-analytical games ("Force of Zero", "Force of Minimum", "Force of Minimax") with playing pluralities of different power N and with different wager price, some registration-and-playing terminals and electronic slot-machines for the payment of the playing credit may be integrated through a local computer network under control of a computer playing server into a playing system offering the players ample scope of choice of a game type, game set dimension and wager price. With respect to every device, a playing server will act as the input/output processor (3), whereas a server database - as the long-term memory unit (14) (see FIG. 1).

In the slot machine centers, it is possible to conduct interactive games both in closed and open and/or mixed modes of access to information about the game status to be defined by a wager distribution histogram.

When placing the first wager in the games with a closed mode of access to information, the player knows neither the current game state nor the number of wagers and players in the current round. However, the player is provided with all updated information displayed on his or her individual data display means (that is, a registration-and-playing terminal display) in exchange for his or her new wager; at every iteration, such information is only provided to one player (namely, the very player whose wager was processed at this iteration).

Games with an open mode of access to information may be conducted, for example, among a group of players who settle the playing tournament beforehand. In this case, a playing server chooses in the playing system individual registration-and-playing terminals and, perhaps, separate accessible data display means for a group game; each player, using an electronic menu, chooses, as his or her playing alias, a graphic image to denote his or her wagers in the histogram; the players settle the number of playing rounds of the group game; and the tournament starts in response to a server signal and completes upon termination of the last playing round.

Games with a mixed mode of access to information conducted in the slot machine centers stand midway between the aforementioned two cases. In particular, such games may be conducted between several teams of players when an updated information about the game state is presented, at each iteration, only to members of the same team (namely, the very team whose wager was processed at this iteration). In the histogram to be displayed, wagers made by members of different teams may be indicated by graphic objects, e.g., squares of different color.

For convenience of the players, registration-and-playing terminals may be equipped with printers to notify the players of wagers placed by them, whereas a local network may additionally comprise reference-information terminals through which everybody who wishes so may obtain information about completed playing rounds. Any player having produced his or her identifier and password may receive, through slot-machine operators, a money equivalent of the cost of a playing credit balance from his or her consolidated account-register or pay an additional sum of the playing credit which will be entered to his or her account.

In its minimum configuration, a local network of a "slot machine center" may contain only 1-2 playing terminals; however, it may be supplemented with a communication input/output processor supporting interaction of the playing server with remote playing terminals through a switched communication line (direct-connection telephone service) and/or batches (TCP/IP - Internet). In this case, a player leaving a "slot machine center" can participate in the games from any other place having a telephone and computer with a modem or, at least, a touch-tone telephone and radio-pager. If the player has access to the Internet, the communication input/output processor provides him or her with a whole range of services of a "slot machine center" with a possibility to supplement the personal playing account by means of banker's credit cards; in the absence of access to the Internet and with the availability of a touch-tone telephone and radio-pager, the same services may be rendered through a direct connection.

Design of hierarchical structures and clusters from playing systems of different level makes it possible to create corporate playing networks that join in one playing round at a "virtual playing table" of players from different "slot machine centers" and different cities, and enable, at the expense of mass nature, a rather quick completion of playing rounds of iteration-and-analytical games on playing pluralities of high power N (N>1,000), thus affording winners large amounts of winnings in short periods of time.

A "slot machine center" conception may be realized rather simply in hotels with rooms equipped with a cable system for broadcasting TV programs requiring payment or inner-hotel cable channel for providing interactive-mode information services. A guest, using a remote control console and a TV screen menu, which in this particular case offers the services of a registration-playing terminal, carries on a dialog with a playing system such as if it were in a slot machine center, while identifying himself by the number of a room occupied and a personal PIN-code. The cost of wagers placed is added to a guest account, winning wagers are materialized by the hotel in the money or other form (souvenirs, free services, free nourishment, living-conditions' enhancement, etc.).

Playing systems of several hotels making use of the same trade name and/or being part of a separate holding may be united into clusters and hierarchical structures, such as described above.

Similar procedures may be used for the conduction of iteration-and-analytical games among subscribers of cable TV systems with interactive services which are widely practiced in view of a wide spread introduction of asynchronous modes of data, sound and video ATM communications (Asynchronous Transfer Mode - see, A. N. Nazarov, M. V. Simonov. ATM: High-Speed Network Technology. Eco-trends, Moscow, 1998). Each user of such a network is an authorized user of its services with a personal network address, registration number and adjusted payment system, so that the opening of a personal paying account and correction of its balance in the course of the game are trivial procedures for such networks. In this case, instead of playing for money, a game organizer may assign wager prices in units for measuring consumer-payable information resources to be supplied by the network (e.g., in the minutes of sport or entertainment program broadcasting time, optionally), and settle accounts with players just in these units using part of resources released as a result of the game conduct (but already paid at the expense of wagers lost), to provide a free or reduced-rate access to networked services to certain groups of the population.

Example 2. Home and Club Playing Systems

Interactive iteration-and-analytical games with both closed and open and/or mixed modes of access to information about the game state may be realized in the form of devices and systems for home and club games.

So, as a home playing system with an open mode of access to information about a game state, there may be used an electronic device for a game involving wagers, in which each individual data display means is made in the form of a wall two-layer circular target filled with numbered images of N white-colored sectors of equal dimension. Sectors of an outer transparent layer are sensitive surface piezoelectric cells, each corresponding to one of game set elements, sectors of the second layer are composed of sector segments of equal radial width, each may be illuminated with different colors, such that the number of possible illumination colors of each segment equals a maximum number of targets used in the game. The playing system also comprises solid objects (balls, darts, pucks, etc.); each target, when colliding said subjects, generates a combined signal containing a code of this target and a code of a piezoelectric cell activated on impact.

Before the game starts, each player stocks up some balls; selects, in accordance with a table attached, a code of the illumination color of his or her wagers in the histogram and also a target corresponding to this color; walks away from the target within a specified distance and, after switch-on of the device and in response to an instruction common for all players of the team, throws balls one after another into the target. A drawing display controller (19) operates such that each fact of a ball's hit on one of the sectors of any target causes illumination of the next (counting from a target center) segment of this sector on all targets used in the game, with a color that corresponds to a code of the target hit with the ball. As a result, a circular wager distribution histogram with color identifiers of the wagers placed appears simultaneously on all targets, so that all players at every instant of time are able to observe and identify all wagers placed to that moment.

As an example of a club playing system with an open mode of access to information about a game state there may be a device with a data display facility that is common for all players, said facility is made as a semi-cylindrical vertical screen with its inner surface composed of N vertical numbered white-colored strips of equal width which are separated by vertical black-colored strips, each white strip being a three-layered plate. An outer transparent layer of each of N numbered strips is a sensitive surface of a piezoelectric cell which corresponds to a certain game set elements; an intermediate layer is composed of colored illumination sections having white color in off position and capable, in on position, of emitting light of any color from a predetermined set in the amount of M colors (M>1); an inner layer coincides with that of the separating black strips and consists of identical receivers-detectors of electromagnetic radiation. All black strips also contain identical receivers-detectors. Moreover, the screen contains a generator of weak local electromagnetic field; the system comprises M sets of balls with a built-in generator of electromagnetic signals, which are activated when radiated with the said local field of the screen; parameters of generated signals unambiguously define belonging of a particular ball to one of M sets.

Before the game starts, each of K players (K=M or 1<K<M) registers, as its identifier, a code of one of M colors used in the playing color system to display the wagers in the histogram, receives balls from a ball set corresponding to a registered color and takes up an initial position along with other players in the playing zone with its boundary equispaced from the screen within a specified distance (that is, in a semicircle with its center in the geometric center of a screen cylinder-forming circumference). In response to the game starting signal, the players throw balls into the screen aiming at numbered plates in order to place wagers on corresponding elements of the game set. When the ball and the numbered plate collide, a piezoelectric cell of the latter generates an output signal with a code-number of this element, whereas the receiver-detector recognizes an identifying signal of this ball which is generated when the ball hits a screen local field, with the result that a combined signal is produced at the screen output, said signal carrying a wager code and a player code. Upon processing of these codes with a drawing display unit (19), the screen displays a regular (from bottom upwards) section of the color illumination on the numbered strip hit with the ball; the illumination color corresponds to an identified ball code. When the ball hits the black strip, a generated output signal of the screen only contains a ball code identified by the receiver-detector, which is treated by a recognition and identification unit (4) as a miss and request for a wager generation by the device; as a result, a wager for this identified player is generated by a wager generation unit (13).

From a technological point of view, the embodiments of home and club interactive playing systems described above are the simplest ones. With use of electronic means and technologies it is possible to create a large number of different modifications of home and club interactive iteration-and-analytical games.

Example 3. National Electronic Lotteries

The existing organization and technological infrastructure for the conduction of traditional national electronic lotteries which contains in different towns the points of sales of numbered lottery coupons (like "Lotto-Million", see above) with electronic terminals for the wager registration, may be used, with slight changes and modifications, for the conduction of iteration-and-analytical games in a closed data display mode. Electronic terminals must be supplemented with graphic or alphanumeric displays to represent histograms; the design and assemblage of information fields of lottery coupons must comprise: a game type selection field; a field of the game set selection from a predetermined pool of sets; and a wager assigning field (the said pool of sets may be represented by integer ranges from 0 to 9, from 10 to 99, from 100 to 999, from 1,000 to 9,999, etc., so that the belonging of a wager to be assigned to one of such sets is unambiguously defined by a numeric value of this wager); hardware-software of the central playing server must be adapted to a time-separated wager registration mode in order to form turns and supplemented with devices which embody iteration-and-analytical games. When providing a necessary speed of response of the central playing server and sufficient channel capacity, an electronic terminal of the point of sales of lottery coupons prints on a player's coupon, during registration of his or her wager, the registration data and time, the wager accounting number in the current playing round and the round number. Using this data, a player can later on check his or her coupon-wager against a prize, through a lottery information service. In case of a "Force of Zero" instantaneous lottery, the electronic terminal prints an outcome on a player's coupon right after a wager has been read from the coupon and registered by the central server in a corresponding device which embodies a selected game.

To simplify operations concerning the award of prizes and technical realization of procedures for the wager registration in real-time mode, national electronic iteration-and-analytical lottery games may be conducted according to a multilevel hierarchical scheme of connecting the playing servers, where each level corresponds to a certain range of power N of playing pluralities, so that, e.g., N<100 games are processed by servers covering territories with population up to 20-30 thousand people, N<1000 games - by servers covering territories with population up to 100-150 thousand people, N<10,000 games - by servers covering territories with population up to 1.5-3.0 million people, etc.

Example 4. Broadcasting Telephone and Television Games

The organization and technological infrastructure existing in many countries for the conduction of telephone questionnaire systems using broadcasting TV, touch-tone telephone sets and computer servers carrying out registration of players and wager acceptance by means of a successive generation of voice messages for a speaking subscriber and receipt of his or her answers to these messages in the form of digital codes to be generated by the server when identifying signals sent by a speaker from a touch-tone telephone, may be successively used for the conduction of iteration-and-analytical games with an open mode of access to information about a histogram. Technical changes only affect the playing server and include adaptation of voice generation programs to the specific nature of iteration-and-analytical games (selecting a game type, selecting a game set, assigning a wager, confirming a wager acceptance with the indication of its number in the turn and the number of a playing round, etc.), introduction in the server hardware-software of a wager registration mode with timing separation in order to form turns and its supplementation with iteration-and-analytical wager drawing processors and histogram displaying units to communicate information through broadcasting TV systems.

In this case, wagers are paid in a fashion conventional for telephone lotteries. Under a special agreement with a telephone network, another version of mutual settlements between the game participants and authorities may be the assigning of wager prices in units for measuring services rendered by the telephone network (e.g., in the minutes of a telephone call within the limits of one telephone zone, so that the playing credits accumulated by the players are converted to the duration of local, trunk or international calls for which the player is exempted from payment), and a telephone network is able to use its own part of revenue from the game to provide a reduced-rate or free service to certain groups of the subscribers.

In the playing system under consideration, display of information about a histogram may be carried out in alphanumeric form under background conditions in the course of broadcasting other TV programs and/or in graphic form in special playing programs, as well as 24 hours a day in specialized teletext pages.

Example 5. Mass Interactive Games On the Internet

The adjustment of an electronic payment system through credit cards and possibility of real-time exchange of both text and graphic information makes the Internet a promising environment for a widespread and full-scale introduction of mass iteration-and-analytical games. Technically, such introduction has no difficulties and may be implemented on any Internet-server where electronic payment technology has been realized. At the same time, the Internet provides capabilities to realize these games without a direct monetary payment of wagers.

Specifically, interactive iteration-and-analytical games may be conducted using servers of those entities providing the Internet services (Internet-providers) with payment of wagers in units for measuring the cost of providers' services (e.g., in minutes of the Internet access time and/or kilobytes of information to be communicated). In this case, in the course of the game, the Internet-provider redistributes the Internet access time paid by the players between them and himself, in accordance with playing round outcomes and announced regulations of the prize-fund assignment and distribution; as a result, the provider is able to offer its services to certain groups of the population and institutions on free-of-charge or preferential terms, since these services have already been paid by lost wagers.

In another case, a game organizer may, in agreement with one or several providers, accept, as payment of wagers belonging to the players - clients of these providers, the paid resources of the Internet-access, effect payment with these resources of a prize fund, resell his part of the resources gained from the game, through his own electronic shop, for real money and provide a game winners with an opportunity of selling, by electronic auction, the resources of the Internet-access gained by them, also for real money. This scheme promotes the increase in income of the Internet-providers and does not require use of the electronic payment technology for the payment of players' playing credits.

A substantial commercial potential is also contained in the possibility to publish personal messages when placing the wagers, in accordance with the claimed invention. Such possibility makes these games especially attractive for a large number of those people fond of real-time Internet-conferences and discovers prospects for conducting free-of-charge games at the expense of commercial advertisements placed on the playing server. Moreover, winners in these games may acquire, for real money under conditions of electronic auction constantly acting on the playing server, rights to electronic delivery of information to other players, which will also be conducive to the drawing of both new players and advertisers.

Example 6. Mass Advertising Interactive Games On the Internet

Realization of the method and device claimed in the present invention, for conducting advertising interactive iteration-and-analytical games on the Internet meets the most up-to-date trends in the development of electronic commerce. In such games, the players "pay" the wagers placed by them at the expense of their attention to advertisements shown on the playing server in response to every wager placed. In addition to actions related to the wager placement, each player has access to his or her personal playing account-register where all chronology and results of his or her personal participation are represented; the playing server is able to provide the player, using E-mail, with extracts from their personal playing accounts upon completion of the playing rounds, in which their placed wagers were drawn. In this way, realization of interactive iteration-and-analytical games on the Internet affords to the playing server at least three variants of advertising in the course of the game: in response to the wagers to be places; in a personal playing account access mode; in reports on the results of participation in games. With all these variants, an advertisement will be in the focus of certain attention, since each message, apart from a spot, also contains important information about the current playing status and/or drawing results. In so doing, receipt, artwork and payment of orders for advertising and also all accountability before advertisers as regards the performance of their orders may be conducted in the automatic mode of electronic commerce (on-line) using a specific interface of the advertiser.

Example 7. Mass Interactive Games In Discount and Payment Systems

At present, consumers' markets of many countries are flooded with discount systems designed for the drawing regular customers to large providers of goods and services at the expense of providing these customers with flexible systems of individual rebates (discounts) for goods and services and other different privileges, where an account of each customer is supplemented with a certain amount of bonus points for each payment received from him or her (or a sum of payments for a certain period of time) followed by realization of accumulated points through the aforementioned system of discounts and privileges.

Realization of the discount idea has become possible thanks to the introduction by providers of goods and services of hierarchical corporate computer networks which cover each cash register, through which the sale of a good or service is carried out, and contain terminals for the registration of new customers in all points of the provider - customer interaction. In the registration in the discount system, each customer receives a personal identification number which is applied onto a personal discount card handed out to the customer and which is associated in a one-to-one manner with a system file to be created for a customer's personal data and his or her personal account-register for chronological account of all payments, bonus points added and also discounts and other privileges used by the customer (see, e.g., Internet URLs www.gb.be of the Belgian supermarket network GB S.A., www.transaero.ru of the Russian airline Transaero). The Internet-servers of discount systems not only provide clients with a detailed information about discounts and privileges and allow users to accumulate information about consumers' interests of clients, but also provide a client with access via a PIN-code to his or her personal account-register of bonus points and to a personal data file (see, e.g., Internet URLs www.swissair.com/qualiflyer/index.htm of the Swiss airline Swissair, /www.delta-air.com/skymile/index.htm of the American airline Delta Airlines).

The existing organization and technological infrastructure of discount systems is not only a promising environment for the conduction of iteration-and-analytical games, but it itself may derive additional benefits from their introduction. An important factor of success of such introduction consists in the fixing of wager prices in bonus points or free playing points with "payment" of wagers by the players' attention to the address advertising which takes into account earlier revealed consumers' interests of certain players - participants in the discount system.

In the course of the game with the wager payment with bonus points, redistribution of bonus points added to participants in the discount system will occur between them and a provider of goods/services. As a result, the game renders the discount system yet more attractive to the players, whereas a game organizer may, at the expense of bonus points gained from the game, save its own financial resources and/or provide its goods and services to certain groups of the population on a charitable basis.

In case of introduction of iteration-and-analytical games to discount programs of airlines, passengers may also take part in the games in flight, while paying wagers with bonus points accumulated on a personal account earlier and/or to be added for the conduct of a flight concerned. Application of iteration-and-analytical games will expand the range of passengers to be registered as participants of the discount program in flight; technical implementation of the games on board the plane will be defined by equipment of a specific plane with modern machinery and appliances - these may be telephone games with the acceptance of wagers through telephone sets installed in passengers' seats and regular TV broadcast of the playing rounds over airborne cable TV broadcast network (see, Example 4), or interactive games using built-in personal interactive video-monitors of asynchronous airborne network of information services (see, Example 1, as well as Swissair Gazette, June'98, p.103).

Banker's payment systems using plastic debit and credit cards and also using cards with a built-in chip (smart-cards), which memory is loaded with a sum of "electronic" or virtual money backed by real money (see, Internet URL www.protonworld.com of the electronic money system Proton), are close to discount systems as regards the organization and technological infrastructure used. Holders of such cards are identified in the system with the numbers of their cards, PIN-codes and numbers of personal bank accounts; ready money pay out (and also load of new "electronic" money in smart-cards) is supported by networks of automatic teller machines which represent personal computers with a graphic display.

Interaction-analytical games as one of applications of electronic payment systems through debit, credit and smart cards, due to their playing interest and sporting competitive strength of the interactive mode, constitute a promising direction in the development of national and municipal electronic lotteries to draw the interest of vast masses of the population.

Claims

A wager game method which comprises forming a game set of N>1 information elements by generating a set of N non-repeating information codes in a computer memory; communicating to data display means of the players, through communication lines, signals which carry information about the game set elements, wager drawing completion conditions, a wager price and rules for the determination of winning wagers; registering the players each having received a unique identification index; selecting, by every player, one of the game set elements as a wager, or forming by him or her a request for the generation of a wager in his or her name; communicating, through feedback communication lines, signals which identify the players and carry information about the wagers; identifying and registering signals received through feedback lines, in a succession which is defined by the sequence of their arrival; producing wager payment data; generating wagers by signals of the players with a corresponding request; drawing the wagers in the playing rounds by means of the iteration-and-analytical process of producing signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements; at every stage of the said process, correlating a regular signal of a registered signal sequence with the information code of a game set element which corresponds to this signal; determining the number of signals correlated with the information code of each game set element; analyzing a predetermined condition of the wager drawing end which is defined by the quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements; completing the wager drawing and the current playing round at the current iteration as soon as said condition of the wager drawing end is observed; producing, in the playing round, and communicating, upon its completion, to data display means of the players, signals which carry information about the drawing results and all wagers processed; and commencing the wager drawing in a new playing round when registering the first signal which carries information about a wager upon completion of the preceding round or upon notice of the game start; characterized in that at every iteration of the drawing process, signals carrying information about a quantitative wager distribution on the game set elements are communicated through communication channels to data display means of a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration.
A method according to claim 1, characterized in that at every iteration of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about the quantitative distribution of wagers on the game set elements are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players.
A method according to claim 1, characterized in that at the predetermined iterations of the wager drawing process, signals carrying information about the quantitative distribution of wagers on the game set elements are communicated through communication lines to data display means of some or all other players.
A method according to claim 3, characterized in that the numbers of iterations, in the execution of which signals carrying information about a wager distribution on the game set elements are communicated to data display means of some or all players, are assigned with regard to signals of the players which contain a request for the presentation of information about the quantitative wager distribution.
A method according to claims 1-4, characterized in that the data display means is provided with signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution that are generated with regard to information about a wager processed at the wager drawing iteration last-executed by the moment of signal transmission.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be displayed on the data display means, there are separated those signals that carry data about wagers taken into account in this distribution and registered on behalf of the player whose data display means is provided with signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry identification data about the belonging of a wager to a particular player and/or particular group of players, with respect to each wager taken into account in this distribution.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that among signals carrying information about the quantitative wager distribution to be communicated to the data display means, there are included those signals that carry data about a serial number of each wager taken into account in this distribution, said number being defined by the number of iteration at which this wager was processed by the iteration-and-analytical process in a given playing round.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration in the current playing round, is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that at every wager drawing iteration, the data display means of the players is provided with signals carrying information about the serial number of this iteration in a given playing round and about the number of this playing round.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the playing status of this wager, said status being revealed at this iteration.
A method according to claims 1-5, characterized in that at every wager drawing iteration, a player whose information about a wager is processed at this iteration, is provided, through communication lines, with signals carrying information about the completion or continuation of the playing round as a result of executing this iteration.
A method according to claims 1-12, characterized in that signals carrying information to be communicated to the data display means of the players contain signals with information of advertising nature.
A method according to claim 13, characterized in that a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of an advertising information to be communicated to the player in response to his or her wager.
A method according to claim 13, characterized in that an advertising information to be communicated to a particular player is selected with regard to social and demographic factors and consumers' interests of this player.
A method according to claims 1-15, characterized in that in the generation and feedback-transmission of signals carrying information about a wager, the player generates and feedback-communicates signals with information contained in his or her personal message which, in the course of the playing round and upon its completion, are communicated to the data display means of the players.
A method according to claim 16, characterized in that a wager price is determined to be proportional to a maximum body of one information message to be communicated by the player through feedback channels.
A method according to claims 1-17, characterized in that a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals of activated sensitive elements of the data display means.
A method according to claims 1-17, characterized in that a data display means is used in the form of a screen with N sensitive information elements with a visually identifiable marking, each element one-to-one corresponding to one of the game set elements; selection of the game set elements as wagers is carried out by activating respective sensitive elements of the screen with driving signals identifying the players; a signal containing information about a wager is used in the form of the output signal of an activated sensitive element of the screen, said signal containing a unique information code of this element; succession of registering signals carrying information about wagers is defined by the sequence of arrival, through feedback channels, of signals which identify the players; in the presence of an identifying signal and the absence of a corresponding activated signal of the sensitive element as a signal containing information about the wager, a signal with an information code which corresponds to one of N information codes of the game set elements is generated and used.
A method according to claims 1-19, characterized in that at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed while processing a signal containing information about a wager on the only game set element with the information code of which in the iteration-and-analytical process of this playing round no signal has been correlated before the processing of the latter signal.
A method according to claims 1-19, characterized in that at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes each correlating with only one signal in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one such information code and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.
A method according to claims 1-19, characterized in that at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which the greatest and the least number of signals have been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one information code with which the least number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, of only one information code with which the greatest number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.
A method according to claims 1-19, characterized in that at every iteration of the wager drawing process, revealed are those information codes with which the greatest number of signals has been correlated in the current playing round, and the iteration-and-analytical wager drawing is completed in the presence of only one such information code and the absence of information codes with which no signal has been correlated in the current playing round.
A wager game device to implement a method as claimed in claim 1, comprising a game initialization unit (1) connected via a data dissemination unit (2) to one of inputs of an input/output processor (3) which is connected with its output to a recognition and identification unit (4); a wager payment unit (5); a wager registration unit (6); a drawing controller (7); a winning-logic unit (8); and a recording unit (9) which are connected in series; a round counter (10) connected to the second input of the wager registration unit (6) and to the second output of the drawing controller (7) connected with its second input to the output of the game initialization unit (1); a wager drawing processor (11) interconnected with the drawing controller (7); a wager registration confirmation unit (12) connected to the input of the input/output processor (3) and to the second output of the wager registration unit (6); a wager generation unit (13) connected to the output of the game initialization unit (1) and interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4); a long-term memory unit (14) connected to the outputs of the recording unit (9) and the wager registration confirmation unit (12) and interconnected with the recognition and identification unit (4) and the wager payment unit (5) which is connected to the output of the game initialization unit (1); a personal playing account access unit (15) and an outcome review unit (16) which are connected to corresponding outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4) and interconnected with the long-term memory unit (14) and the input/output processor (3); a timer (17) connected to the drawing controller (7), the wager payment unit (5), the recording unit (9), and the long-term memory unit (14); a drawing display unit (18) included between the drawing controller (7) and the input/output processor (3); registration-playing terminals interconnected with the input/output processor (3); said device is characterized in that it has a drawing display controller (19) included between the drawing controller (7) and the drawing display unit (18) and connected to the second output of the game initialization unit (1); and it has data display means (20) connected to the outputs of the input/output processor (3), the second input of the drawing display unit (18) being connected to one of the outputs of the recognition and identification unit (4).
A device according to claim 24, characterized in that the drawing display controller (19) is connected to the output of the recognition and identification unit (4).
A device according to claims 24, 25, characterized in that it comprises an advertiser's interface unit (21) interconnected through communication lines with an advertisement circulation unit (22) which is connected to the game initialization unit (1) and included between the recognition and identification unit (4) and the input/output processor (3).
A device according to claim 26, characterized in that the advertisement circulation unit (22) is interconnected with the long-term memory unit (14).
A device according to claims 24-27, characterized in that it comprises signal generators (23) connected to input ports of the data display means (20), an input port of each data display means (20) containing a screen with N built-in sensitive elements, outputs of the data display means (20) being connected, through feedback channels, to the input/output processor (3).
A device according to claims 24-28, characterized in that the wager drawing processor (11) comprises a decoder (24) connected with its outputs to driving inputs of flip-flops (25) which are connected with their outputs to inputs of a "logical AND" gate (26) connected with its output to initializing inputs of the flip-flops (25).
A device according to claims 24-28, characterized in that the wager drawing processor (11) comprises the decoder (24) connected with its outputs to inputs of the counters (27) which are connected with their outputs, via comparison units (28), to inverse inputs of a "logical AND" gate (29) which is connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to a data bus (30).
A device according to claims 24-28, characterized in that the wager drawing processor (11) comprises the decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28) and a 1-comparison unit (31); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); an "exclusive OR" gate (32) with inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding 1-comparison unit (31); a "logical AND" gate (33) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (29) and (32); and an encoder (34) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding 1-comparison unit (31), said gate (33) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27) and to a control input of the encoder (34); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to the data bus (30).
A device according to claims 24-28, characterized in that the wager drawing processor (11) comprises the decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28), a minimum-comparison unit (35), and a maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); a first "exclusive OR" gate (32-1) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding minimum-comparison unit (35); a first "logical AND" gate (33-1) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (29) and (32-1); a second "exclusive OR" gate (32-2) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a second "logical AND" gate (33-2) with two inputs connected to outputs of the gates (33-1) and (32-2); a first encoder (34-1) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding minimum-comparison unit (35); a second encoder (34-2) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a minimum-counter (37) coupled to the output of the gate (33-1), said minimum-counter (37) being connected with its output to the input of each of minimum-comparison units (35); and a maximum-counter (38) coupled to the output of the gate (32-2); said maximum-counter (38) being connected with its output to the input of each of maximum-comparison units (36); said gate (33-2) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27), (37), (38); said gate (33-1) being connected with its output to a control input of the first encoder (34-1); said gate (32-2) being connected with its output to a control input of the second encoder (34-2); second outputs of the counters (27) being connected to the data bus (30).
A device according to claims 24-28, characterized in that the wager drawing processor (11) comprises the decoder (24), each of N 1-bit outputs of said decoder being coupled to the stage of said counter (27) and in-parallel connected thereto a null-comparison unit (28) and a maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (29) with N inverse inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding null-comparison unit (28); an "exclusive OR" gate (32) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a "logical AND" gate (33) with two inputs coupled to outputs of the gates (29) and (32); an encoder (34) with N inputs each coupled to the output of the corresponding maximum-comparison unit (36); a maximum-counter (38) coupled to the output of the gate (32), said maximum-counter (38) being connected with its output to the input of each of the maximum-comparison units (36); a 3-bit shift register (41) coupled to the output of the gate (32), first, second and third outputs of said register being each connected to the corresponding input of a "logical AND" gate (42) with a first direct and a second and a third inverse input; a pre-maximum-counter (40) coupled to the output of said gate (42); said gate (33) being connected with its output to initializing inputs of the counters (27), (38), (40) and the register (41); said gate (32) being connected with its output to a control input of said encoder (34); second outputs of said counters (27) being connected to the data bus (30).