Granted Patent B2

US 7,988,550 · App. 11/275,321 · Granted Aug 2, 2011

Abstract

Claims (34)

1. A method of processing wagers for a wagering game machine, comprising:

capturing an image of a first gaming voucher and storing in a database at a time the first gaming voucher is dispensed at a wagering gaming machine, the first gaming voucher having voucher information including a voucher identifier;

capturing an image of a second gaming voucher having voucher information including a voucher identifier, wherein validity of the second gaming voucher has not been determined;

reading the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher;

retrieving the image of the first gaming voucher from the database based on the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher matching the voucher identifier of the first gaming voucher;

comparing the image of the first gaming voucher and the image of the second gaming voucher; and

determining in accordance with the comparison the validity of the second gaming voucher.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the voucher information of the second gaming voucher includes a machine-readable indicia including the voucher identifier, the method further comprising processing the image of the second gaming voucher to identify the voucher identifier contained in the machine-readable indicia.

3. The method of claim 1 , further including displaying the image of the second gaming voucher on a user interface.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the voucher information of the first and second voucher includes a machine-readable indicia including the voucher identifier, and wherein the reading includes reading the machine-readable indicia with a barcode reader to determine the voucher identifier.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the capturing of the image of the second gaming voucher occurs in any wagering game machine, and wherein the database storing the image of the first gaming voucher is remote from the wagering game machine where the capturing of the second gaming voucher occurred.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the stored image is used for accounting.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

generating the image of the first gaming voucher; and

printing the first gaming voucher with the voucher information.

8. The method of claim 3 , further comprising inspecting the image of the second gaming voucher on the user interface to determine the validity of the gaming voucher.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher is obtained by using optical character recognition.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first gaming voucher and the second gaming voucher are the same gaming voucher.

11. A wagering game machine comprising:

a gaming voucher printer to print a first gaming voucher having voucher information including a voucher identifier;

an imaging device for capturing an image of the first gaming voucher;

a processor for generating the voucher information for the first gaming voucher, the processor further for and communicating the voucher identifier and the image of the first gaming voucher to a database for storing the image in association with the voucher identifier at the time the first gaming voucher is dispensed;

the processor further for retrieving the image of the first gaming voucher from the database based on the voucher identifier identified from a captured image of a second gaming voucher matching the voucher identifier of the first gaming voucher; and

a gaming voucher image comparison unit to compare the image of the first gaming voucher and the image of the second gaming voucher to determine the validity of the second gaming voucher.

12. The wagering game machine of claim 11 , wherein the processor determines the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher from the captured image of the second gaming voucher.

13. The wagering game machine of claim 11 , further including a voucher acceptor, the voucher acceptor for determining the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher from machine-readable indicia.

14. The wagering game machine of claim 11 , wherein the image of the second gaming voucher is a redemption-time image.

15. The wagering game machine of claim 11 , wherein the first gaming voucher and the second gaming voucher are the same.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable medium with instructions stored thereon, which when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:

capture an image of a first gaming voucher and store in a database at the time the first gaming voucher is dispensed at a gaming machine, the first gaming voucher having voucher information including a voucher identifier;

capture an image of a second gaming voucher having voucher information including a voucher identifier, wherein the validity of the second gaming voucher has not been determined;

read the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher retrieve the image of the first gaming voucher from the database based on the voucher identifier of the second gaming voucher matching the voucher identifier of the first gaming voucher;

compare the image of the first gaming voucher and the image of the second gaming voucher; and

determine in accordance with the comparison the validity of the second gaming voucher.

Assignments (8)