Patent ID: 7828647

Claim:
A method for awarding time-sensitive tickets in a gaming environment, the method comprising: establishing access between a ticket database managed by a ticket provider and a backend computer in a gaming establishment, wherein the backend computer is in communication with one or more gaming machines; reserving a first block of time-sensitive tickets for a first event having a specific date and time from the ticket database to the gaming establishment, wherein the first block of one or more time-sensitive tickets are purchasable by the gaming establishment; assigning one or more tickets from the first block of time-sensitive tickets with one or more winning events in one or more gaming machines using the backend computer; presenting associations between the one or more tickets from the first block time-sensitive tickets and the one or more winning events on the one or more gaming machines; transmitting the associations between the tickets and the winning events from the backend computer to one or more gaming machines; purchasing one or more tickets from the ticket database in response to the one or more winning events being established in one or more gaming machines; awarding one or more tickets to a player at the gaming machine in response to the one or more winning events occurring during play of the gaming machine by the player; removing associations between the first block of time-sensitive tickets and the one or more winning events when the date of first event has past; and assigning a second block of time-sensitive tickets with one or more winning events in one or more gaming machines after the date of first event has past.