Patent ID: 7922576

Claim:
A method for controlling access to a secondary game on a gaming machine during play of a primary game, said method comprising: determining if the player is enrolled in a player tracking system; presenting a preselected wager threshold to a player via at least one of a visual message and an audio message, wherein the preselected threshold is determined based on player enrollment in the player tracking system; accepting a wager from the player via a gaming machine input device; comparing, by a server, the accepted wager to the preselected wager threshold; prompting the player to increase the accepted wager when the accepted wager is less than the preselected wager threshold; when the accepted wager equals the preselected wager threshold, receiving a trigger signal at the gaming machine; initiating the secondary game, by the gaming machine, in response to the trigger signal, wherein initiation of the secondary game is based only on the comparison of the accepted wager to the preselected wager threshold and regardless of an outcome of the primary game; and reporting the outcome for play of the primary game via a gaming machine primary indicator and an outcome for play of the secondary game via a gaming machine secondary indicator.