Patent ID: 7713121

Claim:
A progressive system for paying out a primary progressive prize and a secondary progressive prize comprising: a progressive controller; a funding module program executable by said progressive controller, said funding module configured to maintain a primary progressive award and at least one secondary progressive award, and further configured to award said primary progressive award upon the occurrence of being notified of a win event and further using said notification of said win event for said primary progressive to determine a distribution of at least one of said at least one secondary progressive award; a plurality of game devices, each having a corresponding game processor and game memory; a status indicator coupled to each of said game devices and useable to indicate said game device's current eligibility to participate in at least one of said at least one secondary progressive award; a network connecting each of said game devices to said progressive controller providing communications therebetween; a game of chance executable by each of said game devices; enrollment programming executable by each of said game devices, said enrollment programming configured to: monitor said game device for a progressive winning event; maintain a status of said game device as to its eligibility to participate in at least one of said at least one secondary progressive award, said eligibility useable during said determining of a distribution; indicate said maintained current eligibility status of said corresponding game device on said status indicator; and a prize server and a prize expiration and reissue module executed by the prize server, the prize expiration and reissue module configured to: maintain expiring prizes issued by the game devices, said expiring prizes having an expiration period after issuance and constituting expired prizes after said expiration period; and fund the expired prizes to the secondary progressive award upon expiration of the expiration period.