Patent ID: 8480473

Claim:
A gaming machine for operating a game, comprising: a processor; a wager acceptor coupled to the processor; a payout device coupled to the processor; and a game display coupled to the processor; wherein the processor controls the gaming machine to: accept a wager from a player by the wager acceptor; present a primary game on the game display; award any primary game awards to the player by the payout device; and upon a triggering event, present a feature game on the game display, the feature game comprising: a first portion during which a set of bonus slots is accumulated, the first portion of the feature game comprising at least a predetermined number of free games during which icons representing bonus slots may appear, the number of bonus slot representative icons appearing during the predetermined number of free games is accumulated as the set of bonus slots; a second portion of the feature game comprising: selecting at least one set of a predetermined number of target symbols from among a pool of bonus symbols during which selected bonus symbols are not removed from the pool; selecting a set of match symbols, equal in number to the accumulated number of bonus slots, from among the pool of bonus symbols during which selected bonus symbols are removed from the pool; comparing the match symbols to the at least one set of target symbols; and if all the symbols in the at least one set of target symbols correspond to match symbols, awarding the bonus award associated with the at least one set of bonus symbols to the player by the payout device.