Abstract:
A combination magnetic-stripe card reader with integrated contact-less chip card read/write functions, a direct replacement for a standard player tracking magnetic-stripe card reader installed in slot machines. It is a form, fit and function for existing player tracking readers, having the same front panel appearance, the same physical envelope, using the same mounting method, using the same cable connections and operating in the identical manner. The combined functions requires two command sets and a method to distinguish between them, the legacy command set of the existing reader to be replaced which is typically strings of American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) eight bit characters with a line terminator character and the contact-less chip card requiring the ability to send and receive all possible eight bit values with varying length commands and not having a dedicated character value to indicate the end of a command.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention pertains to casino gaming in particular to the retrofitting of slot machines to add cashless gaming ability by replacing the existing player tracking magnetic stripe card reader with a combination magnetic stripe card reader with integrated contact-less chip card read/write functions. This combined function device greatly reduces the cost of adding the cashless gaming to a slot machine, by not requiring modification to the cabinet or internal cabling. Also, from the player&#39;s standpoint the operation of the player tracking reader appears to be unchanged, as the tactile feel is the same and it accepts all the existing magnetic stripe player cards. The new cashless gaming ability will only become apparent when a player inserts a contact-less chip card. This invention further yields benefits in that a casino need not convert all machines at once but can operate with both cashless gaming and player tracking only, the chip card used is dimensionally the same as the existing player cards thereby allowing all the existing card handling and printing equipment to also process the new chip card without modification or replacement. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Traditionally a slot machine was a stand-alone betting device that accepted coins as the wager and likewise paid out winnings in coins by dumping the won amount into a coin tray at the base of the machine. This required that the machine store the coins wagered and also have a sufficient number of coins to pay the winnings. If the machine received more coins than could be stored, it had to be opened up and the coins removed. Also if the won amount exceeded the number of coins in the machine the player had to be paid in person and coins added to the machine. This can be quite labor intensive considering that many casino floors may have as many as 1500 to 2000 machines. This gave raise to thoughts of cashless gaming. 
     Over the years the types of games that were popular changed. Initially gaming was table games but as time went on machine based games became accepted by more players. As the popularity increased the percentage of the gaming revenue also increased to the point that many casinos installed player-tracking systems to determine the type of player playing the machines and to better serve those players. The player-tracking system needed a way to ID a particular player and cards were chosen, some with punched holes but mainly magnetic strip cards. Now that the machine based gaming represents more than 50% of the casino&#39;s revenue, most every casino has a player tracking system. 
     In recent years with advances in electronics cashless gaming systems have started to be installed some that are account based with the card serving as a means of ID and others using paper coupons. The account-based system uses a magnetic strip card, which is linked to an account stored in a back room computer in much the same way as a debit card is in automatic teller machine (ATM) systems. Winnings and losses are transmitted over a local area network with the accounting being performed by the back room computer. While a coupon, sometimes referred to as “ticket-in ticket-out”, system a printed coupon (the Ticket) is optically read to put the printed value into the machine, so the player can place a wager. When the player desires to end the play session by cashing out, the system prints the winnings or money still in the machine on a paper coupon. This system has the potential to run stand-alone, but the ease of duplicating printed coupons requires a back room computer to monitor the coupons in circulation. The above systems both require an expensive network and back room computer. The coupon system, in addition, must have a coupon reader and coupon printer, requiring paper and ribbons, in each slot machine. 
     Now there is an effort to make a cashless gaming system truly stand-alone or least with minimal monitoring. Some systems have looked to the financial chip cards (smart cards) as a solution and using available combination readers designed for the banking industry. While they work there are some draw backs, the cards use metallic contacts to communicated with the chip and the combination readers were really not designed for the casino environment. The commercially available combination readers being designed to read bank cards read the full length of the card requiring that it protrude further out the front of the slot machine and requires a panel cutout and mounting not compatible with existing slot machines. But the real issue is the contacts in the reader itself cannot hold up to spilled drinks and cigarette ashes ever present in the casino environment. 
     The next generation cashless gaming will be able to run stand-alone (no back room computer and network), requires no consumables such as paper and needs little or no maintenance. 
     The following discloses an embodiment of a device, which provides a major step towards the next generation. 
     OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
     The goal of this invention is to ease the transition of existing slot machine designs to add cashless gaming capability. 
     Accordingly the object of this invention is to fit into the same physical envelope as the existing player tracking magnetic stripe reader. 
     A further object of this invention is to have the operation and tactile feel to be identical to existing player tracking magnetic stripe readers. 
     Another further object of this invention is to connect electrically to the existing wiring harness of the slot machine. 
     Another further object of this invention is to read magnetic stripe player tracking cards and also read and write to contact-less chip cards. 
     Another further object of this invention is to accept both the legacy commands of existing player tracking magnetic stripe reader and the commands of the contact-less card interface used for the cashless gaming functions. 
     Another further object of this invention is for the cashless gaming functions to be immune to typical contamination sources found in the casino environment. 
     Another further object of this invention is to limit the modification required to an existing slot machine to a software up-grade, which adds the cashless gaming functions. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
         FIG. 1  is a view of a typical slot machine showing the locations of various installed devices including the player tracking reader. 
         FIG. 2  shows the top view of the combination magnetic strip reader with the contact-less interface board, the front bezel, the antenna location and the magnetic strip card. 
         FIG. 2A  shows the view of the magnetic stripe read head side of the combination magnetic strip reader. 
         FIG. 2B  shows the view of the contact-less interface board side of the combination magnetic strip reader with the card detects, interconnect cable and I/O connector to slot controller/host. 
         FIG. 3  shows a block diagram of the combination magnetic strip reader. 
         FIG. 4  shows a flow chart or the software that handles the commands from the host and determines the type and destination. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The preferred embodiment of this invention is designed for use in slot machines. 
       FIG. 1  shows a typical slot machine  10  with the typical complement of player tracking and player interface devices. The player tracking system typically includes a player tracking card reader  101  to read the player&#39;s magnetic stripe ID card, a player information display  103  to display the player&#39;s name and reward points and a keypad  102  to enter a PIN number. The player interacts with the slot machine via a player input interface  105  comprised of multiple buttons to enter differing wager amounts and to initiate the game play, and a game display  104  to show the game action and results. The game display  104  may be an electronic screen or mechanical reels. Winnings are dispensed to the player via a coin tray  106  at the base of the slot machine  10 . 
       FIG. 2  shows the top view of a combination magnetic strip reader  11  with a contact-less interface board  30  mounted on top and a magnetic stripe reader electronics board  20  mounted on the bottom. A player tracking magnetic stripe card  60  is shown with magnetic stripe  601  in alignment for reading by a magnetic head  206  part of combination reader  11 . The head  206  is electrically connected to the reader electronics  20  via a set of head wires  208 . Also shown is a contact-less chip card  80  with a contact-less chip  801  and a coupling antenna  802  which are imbedded within the card. For communication with contact-less cards a loop-coupling antenna  303  is located under the contact-less interface board  30 . Also on board  30  is a pair of card position infrared (IR) sources  304  and  305  aligned facing a set of card position sensors  204  and  205  on board  20 . Loop-coupling antenna  303  is positioned near the centerline of the reader body  112  as near the card entrance as possible. The infrared sources  304  and  304  are positioned such that an inserted card will pass between them and the card position sensors  204  and  205 . 
       FIG. 2A  shows the magnetic head  206  side of combination reader  11  with the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  mounted on the bottom and the contact-less interface board  30  mounted on top. 
       FIG. 2B  shows the side with the card position sensors,  204  at the entry and  205  at the rear on the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  in alignment with the card position infrared (IR) sources  304  entry and  304  at the rear on the contact-less interface board  30 . Also shown is the loop coupling antenna  303  positioned approximately one third the distance from the centerline of the reader body  112  to the contact-less interface board  30 . The stripe reader electronics  20  and contact-less interface board  30  are electrically interconnected via a wire assembly  40 . Located on the stripe reader electronics  20  is a connector  207 , which provides the connection to the slot machine controller  70 . In this embodiment connector  207  is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) type connector. The interface connector  207  type required to mate with a given slot controller  70  varies between slot machines depending on the interface type and protocol used. 
     The new combination reader  11  is designed to be mounted in the slot machine  10 , shown in  FIG. 1 , in the same manner and place as the magnetic stripe only reader  101  with the bezel  111  protruding through the same rectangular cutout in the front panel and by the same screws, not shown, using a pair of mounting holes  113  in the bezel  111 . 
       FIG. 3  shows the functional organization of the invention and the relationship between the functional elements. A slot controller  70  (not part of the invention) controls the operation of the slot machine and interfaces with an existing player tracking reader  101 , and with only a software up-grade becomes able to interface with the combination reader  11 . The slot controller  70  communicates with and supplies power to the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  via interface cable  50  part of the exiting slot machine cable harness. Typically cable  50  is comprised of four wired connections: power (+5V), ground (0V), data to the reader and data from the reader. An I/O interface  201  sends to and receives data from the slot controller  70 . The I/O interface  201  may be a variety of types, TTL (+5V/0V) level interface, RS-232 (+V/−V) or USB. 
     The magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  has a micro-controller  202  which process the magnetic stripe reader commands, detects then routes contact-less chip card commands, monitors the card position and decodes the data stream recovered from a magnetic stripe. 
     The magnetic stripe read head  206  is connected to the amplifier, peak detector and comparator  203  via head wires  208  consisting of three wires, two connected to the read winding and one to ground the head case to reduce noise pickup. A combination of amplifier, peak detector and comparator  203  converts the raw head signal to logic levels for micro-controller  202 . 
     The card position sensors, entry  204  and rear  205  detect the card position, the entry sensor  204  signals micro-controller  202  when a card is detected at the entry and likewise the rear sensor  205  signals then a card is at the rear (fully inserted). In the preferred embodiment card position sensors  204  and  205  each are a phototransistor facing infrared light sources, with the collector connected to a pull-up resistor (not shown) resulting in a high logic level when a card is in position blocking the light. 
     Magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  connects to the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  via the wire assembly  40 , which supplies at a minimum: power (+5V), ground (0V), data in and data out. Additional signals from the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  to the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  may include, a busy output (not ready for contact-less card response), a clear to send input (ready for contact-less card command) and a contact-less chip card detected input. 
     A micro-controller  301  on the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  processes the contact-less card commands and communicates with a RF receiver/transmitter  302 . The RF receiver/transmitter  302  is connected to the loop-coupling antenna  303 , constructed on a separate printed circuit board. In the preferred embodiment of the invention the RF receiver/transmitter  302  was chosen to operate at 13.56 Mhz, an Atmel Corporation AT88RF1354 is used, and the loop-coupling antenna  303  is four turns of a 0.014 inch wide trace with 0.006 air gap between turns and outside dimensions of 1.050 inches by 1.050 inches on a printed circuit board. The card position sensor IR (infrared) sources  304  and  305  are both constructed using infrared emitting diodes powered by current limiting resistor (not shown) connected to the supply voltage (+5V). 
     REFERENCE NUMERALS 
     
         
           10  slot machine 
           101  player tracking reader 
           102  keypad 
           103  player information display 
           104  game display 
           105  player input interface 
           106  coin tray 
           11  combination magnetic strip reader 
           111  bezel 
           112  reader body 
           113  mounting holes 
           20  magnetic stripe reader electronics 
           201  I/O interface 
           202  micro-controller 
           203  amplifier, peak detector &amp; comparator 
           204  card position detector, entry 
           205  card position detector, rear 
           206  magnetic head 
           207  connector 
           208  head wires 
           30  contact-less chip card reader/writer electronic 
           301  micro-controller 
           302  RF receiver/transmitter 
           303  loop-coupling antenna 
           304  card position infrared source, entry 
           305  card position infrared source, rear 
           40  wire assembly 
           50  interface cable 
           60  magnetic stripe card 
           601  magnetic stripe 
           70  slot controller 
           80  contact-less chip card 
           801  chip 
           802  coupling loop antenna
 
Operation of the Invention
 
       
    
     When a card, either magnetic stripe card  60  or contact-less chip card  80  is inserted into the combination reader  11  the entry card position sensor  204  will signal that a card has entered. The micro-controller  202  will first attempt to read a magnetic stripe card, when the rear position sensor  205  signals the card is fully inserted it will then proceed with processing the magnetic stripe data if encode data was present. After which the micro-controller  202  can then activate the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  to check if the card contains a contact-less chip. Shown in  FIG. 2 ,  FIG. 2A  and  FIG. 2B . 
     When the magnetic stripe card  60  is inserted into the combination reader  11  with the magnetic stripe  601  aligned as shown in  FIG. 2  in a continuous motion. The encoded data on the magnetic stripe  601  is recovered by the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  in  FIG. 3 . 
     First the magnetic stripe read head  206  senses the flux reversals, the change of the magnetic polarity, encoded on the magnetic stripe  601  and outputs them as positive and negative peaks typically in the mV (millivolt) range. The output signal from read head  206  is sent to the amplifier, peak detector and comparator  203  via head wires  208 . 
     The amplifier in  203  increases the head signal to volt levels, the peak detector in  203  detects the peaks by either differentiating or integrating the signal producing a zero crossing for each peak referenced to a Q-point bias voltage, usually 50% of the supply voltage. The comparator in  203  referenced to the same Q-point voltage further processes the signal from peak detector  203 , and outputs a high logic level (+5V) then the signal is above the Q-point voltage and a low logic level (0V) then below. The comparator output is then sent on to the micro-controller  202  for decoding and subsequent storage in memory. 
     The micro-controller  202  is alerted by the entry card position sensor  204 , going to a high logic level (+5V), that a card has entered the reader and to prepare to start decoding the data stream from the comparator in  203 . The decoding process consists of determining one logic bits from zero logic bits while correcting for the card speed. The bits are grouped into eight bits and stored in memory. When the card is fully inserted, and is sensed by the rear card position sensor  205 , which outputs a high logic level (+5V), the micro-controller  202  knows to end the decoding process. For more details on decoding time-varying bi-phase refer to U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,670, issued to Miller. 
     If magnetic stripe encoded data was not detected, micro-controller  202  signals micro-controller  301  to activate the RF receiver/transmitter  302  in order to test if a contact-less chip card is inserted. If detected, the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  will be left active and the slot controller  70  signaled that a chip card is present and can proceed with communications. If neither magnetic stripe encoded data nor the presence of a chip card was detected an error will be signaled indicating that a magnetic card may have been inserted incorrectly. 
     Unlike magnetic stripe card  60 , data on contact-less chip card  80  is read when the card is fully inserted and is not in motion. All communication is performed via a radio frequency link, which provides both bi-directional communication and a source of power. When the RF receive/transmitter  302  is activated a RF (radio frequency) carrier is applied to the loop-coupling antenna  303 . The power of the RF carrier is of sufficient magnitude that the current induced into loop-coupling antenna  802  in the contact-less chip card  80  will be great enough to power the chip  801 . The communication to chip  801  is accomplished by modulating the carrier, typically at a 25% modulation level. The communication from chip  801  is performed in a somewhat different manner in that the chip  801  modulates the loading of the loop antenna  802 . Since loop antenna  802  and loop antenna  303  actually form a loosely coupled transformer the loading by the chip  801  will be reflected back into antenna  303  such that it can be detected by the RF receive/transmitter  302 . 
     The preferred embodiment uses two micro-controllers to more easily fit the physical shape required and to reduce the number of interconnects between boards. For other embodiments a single micro-controller can be used since the reading of the magnetic strip data is exclusive of the reading and writing a contact-less chip card, even if the card inserted possesses both technologies. 
     With a card fully inserted, and perhaps magnetic stripe data stored in memory, the micro-controller  202  is ready to accept commands from the slot controller  70  via the I/O interface  201 . The Magnetic Stripe Reader Electronics  20  process the magnetic stripe commands received, while contact-less chip card commands are relayed on to the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  for processing. 
     Magnetic stripe commands and contact-less chip card reader/writer commands are distinguished from one another by the first byte (character) received. The first byte of the contact-less chip card reader/writer command set is selected not to have a value equal to any of the existing magnetic stripe commands. Typically existing magnetic stripe commands are limited to printable ASCII characters (20 to 7F hexadecimal) and a line terminator of carriage return (0D hexadecimal) and an optional linefeed (0 A hexadecimal). Therefore the new contact-less chip card reader/writer commands must start with a byte with any value, other than the values afore mentioned. 
     The flow of the program code in micro-controller  202  for processing the magnetic strip commands and the contact-less chip card reader/writer commands is shown in  FIG. 4 . A monitor loop is comprised of steps S 1  and S 2 , in which S 2  performs the time related monitoring of the magnetic strip read functions, including checking the card sensors to detect a card entering the reader and decoding the card data. While S 1  checks if a character byte is ready for input, if so the character byte is input in step S 3 . Step S 4  determines if the byte is the first byte of a contact-less chip card reader/writer command by testing if it is not 20 to 7F hex inclusive or 0D hex nor 0A hex. If the byte is not one of the values tested for, it must be a contact-less card command and the program proceeds to step S 12 , else it must be a magnetic card reader command and proceeds to step S 5 . 
     Step S 5  further tests to see if the byte is the first byte of a command supported by the particular legacy command set being emulated, if not, the command is invalid and an error response is output in step S 11 . If the byte is a supported command then the next byte is input in step S 5  and is then tested in S 7  to see if it is a carriage return (0D hex), if not return to step S 5  to input the next byte. When the line terminator (0D hex) is detected in S 7  the command can then be processed in step S 8 . When the command processing is complete, step S 9  checks if an error has been detected during the command processing. If an error was not detected the command response is output to the slot controller  70  in step S 10 , otherwise an error response is output S 11 . 
     Referring back to step S 4 , if the first byte was not a value that could be a magnetic stripe command then step S 12  determines the byte string length for the particular command just input. The first byte of contact-less chip card reader/writer commands indicates both the command function to be performed and the number bytes in the command, for a given command the byte string length is always the same. In step S 12  the first byte value is used to look-up the associated length (L). With the byte string length now known, step S 13  inputs the balance of the command string (L−1). Step S 14  outputs to the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30  the just input command string in the same order as received. When the command has been completed the response is input in step S 15 . Step S 16  then in turn outputs the response string to the slot controller  70  in the same order as received. Error checking similar to step S 9  is not required because, once it is determined that the command is not a magnetic strip command then the magnetic stripe reader electronics  20  only routes bytes to and from the contact-less chip card reader/writer electronics  30 . 
     Other Embodiments 
     The embodiment disclosed above allows the use of both the legacy magnetic stripe player-tracking cards while at the same time honoring cashless gaming cards on a single system. After some period of time the system will most likely cease using the magnetic stripe cards in favor of the new cashless gaming chip card. At that point a single media reader/writer will only be needed. But the player tracking function will still be needed. 
     To support the player tracking data in the contact-less chip card selected data fields can be used as read only areas for player information. To further support existing slot machine controllers, which still expect a magnetic stripe reader connected, the dual command set can continue to be supported with the exception that the player information is retrieved from the contact-less card instead of from a magnetic stripe.