Patent ID: 7717788

Claim:
A method of conducting a progressive jackpot, the method performed by a computer system, and comprising: storing in a computer system database historical data of player betting activity for a plurality of players; designating, with the computer system, a plurality of gaming machines as associated with a progressive jackpot, the progressive jackpot operating during a time period; funding the progressive jackpot using a funding rate from an existing source of funds, where the source of funds is independent of paytables of the gaming machines and is not directly taken from coin-in to the gaming machines during the time period the progressive jackpot operates; automatically and programmatically varying, by the computer system, the funding rate during the time period the progressive jackpot operates using funding rate rules based upon internal factors describing operating conditions of the gaming machines and external factors describing factors independent of the gaming machines and players; determining, by the computer system using the historical data of player betting, that one or more players at the gaming machines are eligible to win the progressive jackpot associated with the gaming machines; determining on a periodic basis whether at least one of the eligible players is a winner of the progressive jackpot, wherein the periodic basis is variable in response to the internal factors describing operating conditions of the gaming machines and external factors describing factors independent of the gaming machines and players, wherein the periodic basis varies in response to an amount of the progressive jackpot; and wherein the internal factors comprise at least a plurality of the following: a current amount of the progressive jackpot; a current funding rate; a current number of card-in players; a rate of card-in by players; a current number of players at a selected player tier; a rate of card-in by players at a selected player tier; a current number of all players; a total amount of coin-in for all open gaming sessions; and a hold percentage of the gaming machines.