Gaming Device Including Configurable Communication Unit

1 . A gaming device comprising:

a program to conduct gaming operations and to pass a protocol request for transmission over a gaming network; and

a protocol interface to receive the protocol request and to further pass the protocol request to one of a plurality of protocol units, wherein each of the plurality of protocol units is capable of converting the protocol request from a first communication protocol to a second communication protocol.

2 . The gaming device of claim 1 , wherein an application of the gaming device understands the second communication protocol.

3 . The gaming device of claim 1 , further comprising:

a configuration unit to receive configuration information indicating which of the plurality of protocol units is to convert the protocol request.

4 . The gaming device of claim 1 , wherein the protocol interface includes an application programming interface.

5 . The gaming device of claim 1 , wherein the gaming operations include conducting a wagering game.

6 . The gaming device of claim 1 , wherein the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol are selected from the group consisting of BOB, SuperSAS, hypertext transport protocol (http), secure http, and file transfer protocol.

7 . A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, in a gaming device, an indication that one of a set of communication protocols should be used to communicate over a gaming network; and

configuring the gaming device to transmit and receive gaming data over the gaming network, wherein the gaming data is formatted according to the one of the set of communication protocols.

8 . The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:

presenting the set of available communication protocols; and

receiving a selection of one of the available communication protocols, wherein the indication is based on the selection.

9 . The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:

discovering what communication protocol can be used, wherein the indication is based on the discovering of what communication protocol can be used.

10 . The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , wherein the discovering includes transmitting a discovery communication to one or more other gaming devices on the gaming network, the discovery communication asking what communication protocol the one or more other gaming devices uses for transmitting data over the gaming network.

11 . The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the configuring of the gaming device includes disabling existing settings.

12 . The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the method is performed by a machine as a result of the machine executing instructions included in a machine-readable medium.

13 . A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving communications in a destination gaming device, wherein the communications are received from a source gaming device;

determining whether the communications are formatted according to one of a set of convertible communication protocols; and

if the first communications are formatted according to one of the set, configuring the destination gaming device to convert subsequent communications received from the source gaming device into communications formatted according to a protocol understandable by an application of the destination gaming device.

14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , further comprising:

if the first communications are not formatted according to one of the set, transmitting an indication of one or more of the set of supported protocols to a sender of the communications.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the first communications and the subsequent communications are all received from a certain application of the source gaming device.

16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the gaming device includes a protocol unit for each of the set of convertible communication protocols.

17 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the method is performed by a machine as a result of the machine executing instructions included in a machine-readable medium.

18 . A computer-implemented method comprising:

determining that gaming content should be received from a gaming content source over a gaming network;

selecting a first communication protocol for communicating with the gaming content source;

selecting one of a set of available protocol units, wherein the one of the set can convert data from a second communication protocol to the first communication protocol, and wherein the one of the set can convert data to the second communication protocol from the first communication protocol;

requesting the gaming content using the protocol unit; and

receiving the gaming content using the protocol unit.

19 . The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the selecting of the communication protocol is based on data in a script.

20 . The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the requesting of the gaming content using the protocol unit includes passing a request to the protocol unit, wherein the request was formatted according to the second communication protocol, and wherein the protocol unit re-formatted the request according to the first communication protocol.

21 . The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the protocol unit received the gaming content formatted according to the first communication protocol and re-formatted the gaming content according to the second communication protocol.

22 . The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the method is performed by a machine as a result of the machine executing instructions included in a machine-readable medium.