Patent ID: 8064478

Claim:
A gaming network bridge that normalizes messages received in multiple protocols and over multiple network typologies for use in a hybrid network system, the gaming network bridge comprising: a first floor-side port, wherein the first floor-side port enables interconnection with a first gaming machine that communicates with the bridge via a floor-side serial network using a first protocol, wherein the first protocol is a serial message protocol; a second floor-side port, wherein the second floor-side port enables interconnection with a second gaming machine that communicates with the bridge via a floor-side packet-based network using a second protocol, wherein the second protocol is a packet-based message protocol; and a message converter, wherein the message converter is configured to convert the serial message protocol into a normalized packet-based message protocol for communicating with a backend, server-side network, and wherein the message converter is configured to convert the packet-based message protocol into the normalized packet-based message protocol for communicating with the backend, server-side network; wherein the normalized packet-based protocol includes packets created by the message converter from serial frames received from the first port, and packets normalized by the message converter from packet-based messages received from the second port.