Patent ID: 7203841

Claim:
A method of authentication in a gaming system, including a network storage device and a computerized wagering apparatus operable to communicate with each other via a network, comprising: providing a game data set; determining a message authentication code unique to the game data set; and storing the game data set and the message authentication code in a non-volatile memory on a network storage device; transferring, via the network, the game data set to a volatile memory on the computerized wagering apparatus; generating a computerized game on the computerized wagering apparatus wherein the game data set stored in the volatile memory is verified during execution and play of a computerized wagering game on the computerized wagering apparatus by generating a complementary message authentication code that is compared to the message authentication code using a continuously executing program thread executing on the computerized wagering apparatus during play of the computerized wagering game to continuously ensure that the game data stored in the volatile memory has not changed since calculation of the message authentication code.