Patent ID: 8496530

Claim:
A gaming system comprising: a plurality of hand-held tablets, each tablet containing a wireless transceiver for communicating with a plurality of remote gaming machines, each remote gaming machine having a unique address, each remote gaming machine carrying out a game program and displaying a game, each tablet being configured to enable a player to specify an address of any one of the remote gaming machines, via a player interface, to remotely identify a selected one of the remote gaming machines and establish a wireless connection between the tablet and the selected one of the remote gaming machines, such that physical contact with the selected one of the remote gaming machines is not needed to establish the wireless connection, the remote gaming machines being configured to allow multiple tablets to concurrently establish a wireless connection between the multiple tablets and the same gaming machine, each tablet also being configured for receiving a bet designation by the player, via the player interface, for betting on a game to be played by the selected one of the remote gaming machines, the tablets being configured to allow multiple players to place bets on a same game carried out by the selected one of the remote of gaming machines at the same time, each tablet having a processing circuit for receiving award information from the selected one of the remote gaming machines and determining a number of credits to award associated players, after a game outcome is displayed by the selected one of the remote gaming machines, the tablet not being configured to display the game outcome, wherein the selected one of the remote gaming machines is a stationary gaming machine that carries out a game program and displays a game, the stationary gaming machine comprising a transceiver and processor that communicates with the tablets having a wireless connection to the gaming machine to identify a payout based on a game outcome, wherein the selected one of the remote gaming machines comprises a display screen for viewing by multiple players, each player of an associated one of the tablets being able to independently wager on a same game being displayed on the display screen each tablet being configured to allow any player to select a different one of the remote gaming machines for placing bets wirelessly, wherein any player may change playing from one of the remote gaming machines to another without requiring any physical contact with the selected one of the remote gaming machines.