Patent ID: 8523665

Claim:
A gaming system comprising: a plurality of gaming machines, each gaming machine including a display device, an input device, a processor, and a memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to operate with the display device and the input device to display a primary game configured to operate upon a wager placed by a player; and a controller configured to communicate with the plurality of gaming machines, wherein said controller is programmed to: (a) separately maintain: a plurality of progressive awards and an accumulated wager pool; (b) randomly select one of a plurality of different value ranges, each different value range having a greater than zero probability of being selected and a plurality of the value ranges each including a range of different values; (c) after the random selection of one of the plurality of different value ranges, randomly select one of the values from the selected value range; (d) during a bonus event accumulation period, increment said accumulated wager pool based on at least a portion of the wagers placed by the players at the gaming machines; and (e) if the accumulated wager pool increments to the randomly selected value, independent of any value of any of the progressive awards: (i) cause a bonus event to occur; (ii) determine if at least one of said progressive awards is to be provided to one of the players of one of the gaming machines in said bonus event; and (iii) if one of said progressive awards is determined to be provided to one of the players, provide one of said progressive awards to one of the players, wherein which progressive award is provided is based on at least one determination independent of the accumulated wager pool incrementing to the randomly selected value.