Patent ID: 8500540

Claim:
A method including: (a) collecting game play requests from a number of player stations into a first group of game play requests at a gaming server, wherein: (i) each game play request in the first group is made in response to a respective input from a respective player at a respective one of the player stations; (ii) each game play request in the first group constitutes a request to enter a bingo game, the bingo game being one of a number of bingo games played at the gaming server; (iii) each game play request in the first group is sufficient to enter a respective wager from the respective player in the bingo game; and (iv) each game play request in the first group is entitled to receive a respective result for the bingo game, the result either correlating to no prize or correlating to a prize to be awarded to the respective player; (b) in memory at the gaming server, associating each game play request in the first group with a respective bingo card representation; (c) determining if the first group of game play requests meets a predefined condition for a first quorum required to conduct a first bingo game, the predefined condition for the first quorum including a minimum number of game play requests in the first group of game play requests; (d) in response to meeting the predefined condition for the first quorum, conducting the first bingo game at the gaming server with the first group, the first bingo game being conducted by matching a plurality of bingo designations against the bingo card representations associated with the game play requests in the first group and identifying a result for each game play request in the first group; (e) collecting game play requests from the number of player stations into a second group of game play requests at the gaming server while conducting a portion of the first bingo game, wherein: (i) each game play request in the second group is made in response to a respective input from a respective player at a respective one of the player stations; (ii) each game play request in the second group constitutes a request to play in a bingo game, the bingo game being one of a number of bingo games played at the gaming server; (iii) each game play request in the second group is sufficient to enter a respective wager from the respective player in the bingo game; and (iv) each game play request in the second group is entitled to receive a respective result for the bingo game, the result either correlating to no prize or correlating to a prize to be awarded to the respective player; and (f) while conducting a portion of the first bingo game, determining if the second group of game play requests meets a predefined condition for a second quorum.