Patent ID: 7306521

Claim:
A gaming machine for a plurality of players to play a game against each other, comprising: a display for displaying a state of a game; a response image data store for storing individual response image data for each of at least one virtual player, the stored response image data for each virtual player representing different expressions associated with different reactions of that virtual player; a game history data store for storing game history data representing results of play of the game by each of the at least one virtual player; a fortune data store for storing fortune data for each of the at least one virtual player, the fortune data changing according to the day in accordance with a biorhythm of fortune telling; and a game controller for (i) determining if a number of real players is insufficient to play the game, (ii), if the number is determined to be insufficient, selecting the stored response image data for a virtual player representing one of the different expressions associated with different reactions of that virtual player and corresponding to a circumstance of the game being played, for presentation as an image to a real player of the game being played with the gaming machine, and (iii) controlling the play of the virtual player according to an individual personality of that virtual player which is determined based on at least the stored game history data and the stored fortune data.