Patent ID: 8083581

Claim:
A gaming system comprising: at least one display device configured to operate to display a game, said game including a plurality of symbols, a plurality of winning symbol combinations and a plurality of awards associated with said winning symbol combinations; at least one input device; and at least one processor programmed to operate with said at least one input device and said at least one display device for a play of the game to: (a) enable a player to make a wager on said play of the game; (b) randomly select a plurality of said symbols; (c) display said selected symbols in a plurality of coordinates of a game matrix having at least three columns and at least three rows; (d) determine if said displayed symbols form any of said winning symbol combinations; (e) if said displayed symbols form any of said winning symbol combinations, provide the player the award associated with the formed winning symbol combination; (f) remove each of any displayed symbols which form any winning symbol combination from the game matrix; (g) for each of any removed symbols, randomly select and display one of said symbols to reconstitute the game matrix; and (h) repeat (d) to (g) at least once.