Granted Patent B2

US 9,443,393 · App. 14/171,301 · Granted Sep 13, 2016

Abstract

Claims (41)

1. A method of operating a multi-site tournament system including:

(a) receiving and storing information enrolling two or more gaming facilities into a multi-site tournament database in the multi-site tournament system;

(b) establishing a set of pre-qualifying events to generate a list of qualified players at each of the enrolled gaming facilities;

(c) scheduling one or more dates to conduct an in-casino championship tournament at each of the enrolled gaming facilities wherein the qualified players from the respective lists compete for one or more awards including an opportunity to advance to one or more multi-site tournaments;

(d) scheduling one or more dates and locations to conduct the one or more multi-site tournaments; and

(e) uploading and publishing information about the multi-site tournament, pre-qualifying events, enrolled facilities, and qualified players to one or more social media portals so that the information about the multi-site tournament, pre-qualifying events, enrolled facilities, and qualified players is available to users of the one or more social media portals, including (i) receiving and storing information from the enrolled facilities about scheduled pre-qualifying events in the multi-site tournament database; (ii) receiving and storing captured images and data from pre-qualifying events at respective of the enrolled facilities in the multi-site tournament database; (iii) publishing the schedules for the pre-qualifying events and locations; and (iv) publishing selected of the captured images and data in real time or quasi-real time.

2. The method of claim 1 further including:

(a) transmitting an invitation to two or more selected facilities or their respective operators inviting their enrollment in the multi-site tournament;

(b) accepting information from respective ones of the enrolling facilities including one or more logos and one or more dates to conduct pre-qualifying events and the in-casino championship tournament, and adding that information to the multi-site tournament database; and

(c) providing marketing materials to the enrolling facilities for publicizing the multi-site tournament.

3. The method of claim 1 , the scheduling step for the in-casino championship tournaments including:

(a) coordinating dates of the respective in-casino championship tournaments to be completed on or before a selected date; and

(b) scheduling marketing and administrative personnel to participate in conducting the respective in-casino championship tournaments.

4. The method of claim 1 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including:

(a) determining a date and place for the multi-site championship tournament;

(b) determining a pre-determined number of winners from each of the enrolled facilities to compete in the multi-site championship tournament; and

(c) identifying and reserving the facilities for hosting the multi-site championship tournament.

5. The method of claim 4 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including identifying and negotiating travel and accommodation rates and dates for transporting and housing for one or more of the pre-determined number of winners, facility representatives, guests, and tournament support personnel.

6. The method of claim 1 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including:

(a) determining the dates and places for the first tier of multi-site tournaments;

(b) determining a pre-determined number of winners from each of the enrolled facilities to compete in at least one of the first tier of multi-site tournaments, wherein a pre-determined number of first tier winners advance to a next tier of multi-site tournaments; and

(c) identifying and reserving the facilities for hosting the first tier of multi-site tournaments.

7. The method of claim 6 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including identifying and negotiating travel and accommodation rates and dates for transporting and housing the pre-determined number of winners, facility representatives, guests, and tournament support personnel.

8. The method of claim 6 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including:

(a) determining the pre-determined number of first tier winners to compete in a next tier of multi-site tournaments, wherein the next tier comprises a championship tier; and

(b) identifying and reserving the facilities for hosting the championship tournament.

9. The method of claim 8 , the scheduling step for the one or more multi-site tournaments including identifying and negotiating travel and accommodation rates and dates for transporting and housing the pre-determined number of first tier winners, facility representatives, guests, and tournament support personnel.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the captured images include audio and video signals.

11. The method of claim 1 further including the step of:

(a) providing a gaming portal to viewers wherein viewers may download one or more gaming applications, receive a countdown transmission for an impending pre-qualifying tournament event, and participate remotely in the pre-qualifying tournament event or a pseudo-version of the pre-qualifying tournament event.

12. The method of claim 11 further including the step of:

(a) publishing the scores of in-casino and remote participants in the pre-qualifying tournament event.

13. A multi-site tournament gaming system including:

(a) two or more gaming facility subsystems, each gaming facility subsystem including a facility tournament system operative to conduct one or more tournaments and determine one or more facility winners;

(b) a tournament coordinator server communicatively connecting to the two or more gaming facility subsystems to receive tournament data and information concerning facility winners;

(c) a multi-site tournament system operative to receive the names of facility winners and conduct one or more tournaments with the facility winners to determine one or more multi-site winners;

(d) one or more websites communicatively connecting through respective website servers to one or more of the tournament coordinator server, the multi-site tournament system, and the gaming facility subsystems, the website servers receiving and publishing tournament data and information for viewing by persons accessing the respective websites; and

(e) one or more of the respective website servers configured to receive and publish the tournament data and information substantially in real-time, the tournament data including at least one of audio and video data streams from one or more of the gaming facility subsystems, tournament coordinator server, and multi-site tournament system.

14. The system of claim 13 , in which the tournament coordinator server is operative to connect to one or more external social media servers and websites for transmitting tournament data for publication.

15. The system of claim 13 , in which at least one of facility tournament systems further comprises one or more tournament banks of gaming machines, the tournament banks each including one or more overhead displays connected to receive data and information from each gaming machine and tournament server including live camera feeds of competing players, spectators and leaderboard data for display on a real- or quasi-real-time basis.

16. The system of claim 15 , in which the tournament banks are convertible into an in-revenue mode when not used for tournaments.

Assignments (14)