Patent ID: 8070588

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, from a player, a first cashless instrument in a gaming machine, the first cashless instrument not being entirely redeemable for cash; crediting the gaming machine from the first cashless instrument to create credited funds on the gaming machine; allowing the player to play the gaming machine using the credited funds, wherein the gaming machine supports supported denomination levels and the player is restricted to playing the gaming machine using a subset of the supported denomination levels, the subset being less than all of the supported denomination levels; receiving a cashout request from the player at the gaming machine and issuing the player a second cashless instrument; and receiving, from the player, the second cashless instrument in a ticket redemption machine, wherein a record for the second cashless instrument is accessed in an electronic database, wherein the ticket redemption machine provides a cash award to the player for the second cashless instrument when the second cashless instrument reflects that the player has won at least a threshold dollar amount from the first cashless instrument.