Patent ID: 8118677

Claim:
A method for identifying a first in-cabinet gaming device on a gaming network, the method comprising: providing a plurality of gaming devices connected to the network, wherein each gaming device includes a plurality of in-cabinet devices that communicate with each other; transmitting a MAC/IP address of the first in-cabinet gaming device within a first gaming machine during an initialization procedure; detecting the transmission at a switch and creating a table of the MAC/IP address of the first in-cabinet gaming device; periodically transmitting the table from the switch to the gaming network; receiving the MAC/IP address of a second in-cabinet gaming device within the first gaming machine at the first in-cabinet gaming device; and initiating a verification procedure between the first in-cabinet gaming device and the second in-cabinet gaming device to permit communication between the in-cabinet gaming devices; wherein the gaming network maps an association between an IP address, a device MAC address, and a unique device identifier (DID), and wherein the gaming network treats any alteration of the IP/MAC/DID association as an intrusion attempt; wherein the in-cabinet gaming devices are made aware of each other's presence through MAC/IP transmissions, and wherein the gaming method enables use of a single network port for each in-cabinet device to communicate with each other and with a back-end system; wherein the in-cabinet gaming devices do not require pre-knowledge of the MAC/IP addresses of other devices, since the in-cabinet gaming devices can learn the MAC/IP addresses of other devices both at start up and during run-time, thereby enabling new in-cabinet gaming devices to be added to a game cabinet where the new devices are integrated and identified.