Patent ID: 8105148

Claim:
An amusement device comprising a vertically mounted wheel having a plurality of cavities provided on the periphery of said wheel along an inner rim, front and rear enclosures to prevent game pieces from falling out of said wheel, a motor to rotate said wheel at a substantially constant rate, a releaser to sequentially release a plurality of game pieces into the wheel so that said pieces immediately fall from said releaser one after another and then free fall along a substantially vertical path from said releaser toward said inner rim and said releaser therefore may cause a plurality of pieces to be contained in the bottom half of said wheel at the same time after a release of said game pieces from said releaser, a game piece detector positioned at a location wherein said cavities will pass by said detector and wherein said detector generates a signal in response to the absence of a ball in said cavities and transmits said signal to a central controller, a home position detector to detect the position of the wheel, a game piece guide wherein when said pieces are oriented at an angular position sufficient to allow release from said cavities, said guide will temporarily retain said pieces and then allow the release of said pieces to a retention area, and wherein said central controller, uses said signals from said game piece detector and said home position detector to determine the positions of said plurality of game pieces that have been released into said wheel and seated in said cavities and to provide a signal to a dispenser which may dispense an award in response to the detection of said game pieces in said predetermined cavities, wherein a player may attempt to time the release of said game pieces so that they come to rest in selected adjacent cavities.