Patent ID: 8808092

Claim:
A method of multi-player regulated gaming on a network of gaming machines, the method comprising the steps of: enabling game play of a same game at each of a selected first to N th gaming machine in the network, the first to N th gaming machine forming a virtual combined gaming machine; maintaining game performance meters at each of the selected first to N th gaming machines of the virtual combined gaming machine; consolidating the game performance meters by adding together the maintained game performance meters from the first to Nth gaming machines; dividing the consolidated game performance meters by N to generate respective regulatory meters for each of the first to Nth gaming machines and reporting the N regulatory meters to a central system coupled to the network; removing a gaming machine from the virtual combined gamine machine whenever the game performance meters of the gaming machine reaches zero; carrying out one of: causing a player of the removed gaming machine to forfeit his or her regulatory meters in remaining ones of the first to N th gaming machines of the virtual combined gaming machine, and awarding the player of the removed gaming machine his or her share of the regulatory meters; continuing game play and returning to the removing step until only a single one of the first to N th gaming machines remains, and awarding any remaining regulatory meters to a player of the single remaining gaming machine.