Patent ID: 9317858
Filing Date: 2016-04-19
CPC Classification: G06Q,G07F

Claim Text:
1. A method of operating a gaming system, said method comprising: (a) causing at least one display device of a first gaming machine to display, to a first customer, a first type of award, said first gaming machine being associated with a credit balance which is: (i) increasable via an acceptor of a physical item associated with a monetary value, and (ii) decreasable via a cashout device; (b) receiving, at least one remote host connected, over a network, with at least the first gaming machine, data associated with a first input from the first customer identifying a second type of award; (c) receiving, at at the at least one remote host, data associated with a second input from the first customer specifying a first number of units of the first type of award to exchange for a second number of units of the second type of award; (d) causing the at least one remote host to prevent the first customer from redeeming the specified first number of units of the first type of award after receiving the data associated with the second input from the customer; (e) causing the at least one remote host to identify a second customer having the second type of award from a plurality of customers each having the second type of award, said identification based on referencing a database of the plurality of customers having the second type of award, for each of the plurality of customers, the database indicating whether said customer has previously specified an interest in exchanging the second type of award for the first type of award with another customer; (f) causing the at least one remote host to determine, based on referencing the database, if the identified second customer having the second type of award has previously specified a willingness to exchange the second number of units of the second type of award for less than or equal to the specified first number of units of the first type of award; and (g) if the identified second customer having the second type of award has previously specified a willingness to exchange the second number of units of the second type of award for less than or equal to the specified first number of units of the first type of award, causing the at least one remote host to automatically execute the exchange between the first customer and the second customer.