Patent ID: 9495840
Filing Date: 2016-11-15
CPC Classification: G07F

Claim Text:
1. A system, comprising: a plurality of wagering gaming machines playable by a plurality of players, each of the wagering gaming machines including an acceptor device which accepts physical media associated with a monetary value to establish a credit balance, a display device for displaying a game, a random number generator; a non-transitory memory device having computer executable instructions stored thereon, and a processor configured to receive a signal indicative of a wager from a player via the input device, adjust the credit balance as a function of the wager, and initiate the game, the wagering gaming machine configured to receive a wager amount from a respective player and responsively initiate a game; a database, the database including: a table comprising a community awards list including a plurality of total award records, each total award record including a predetermined total award amount, an associated number of players, and a set of community player awards corresponding to the associated number of players, each total award record including a different total number of players and a different predetermined total award amount; and a plurality of player tracking accounts, each account associated with at least one player; a system controller, the system controller coupled to each of the gaming machines and the database, the system controller configured to: track the gaming activity of a player on at least one of the plurality of wagering gaming machines; detect a triggering condition on at least one of the plurality of wagering gaming machines as a function of the tracked gaming activity of a player, and in response to the triggering condition being detected from at least one of the plurality of wagering gaming machines, perform the following: determine a number of current players playing the plurality of gaming machines at the time of the triggering condition; access the community award list and select a single predetermined total award amount associated with the determined number of current players from the plurality of total award amounts listed in the community award list; determine the set of community player awards associated with the selected single predetermined award amount and provide a community player award from the determined set of community player awards to each player included in the number of current players such that a total amount of the community player awards being provided to the number of current players is equal to the determined total award amount; and place each community player award in the corresponding player tracking account associated with each current player.