Patent ID: 7824267

Claim:
A method of operating a gaming system, said method comprising: allowing game play on one or more of a plurality of gaming devices connected to a central controller over a gaming network; accumulating, for each of the plurality of gaming devices, tournament bonus credits earned during game play on the respective gaming device; selecting at least a portion of the plurality of gaming devices to participate in a tournament from the plurality of gaming devices that have accumulated a number of tournament bonus credits based on criteria established only by an operator of the gaming system; receiving a desired number of tournament entries from the selected gaming devices, wherein the desired number of tournament entries corresponds to a multiple of the required number of tournament bonus credits necessary for participation in the tournament; decrementing an amount of tournament bonus credits accumulated for each of the selected gaming devices from which at least one tournament entry is received; initiating a tournament mode of play on the network for the selected gaming devices; transmitting a signal over the network to each of the selected gaming devices indicating that the gaming device is selected for the tournament mode of play; starting the tournament mode of play at a starting time; tracking game play that occurs on the selected gaming devices after the starting time as tournament game play; compiling tournament game play as tournament data; displaying the tournament data substantially in real-time as it is collected; and ending the tournament after a player of one of the selected gaming devices achieves predetermined game results.