US-12626560-B2 - Game state reset feature for gaming machine fault

US12626560B2US 12626560 B2US12626560 B2US 12626560B2US-12626560-B2

Abstract

A system and method(s) to perform operations for storing gaming data in a non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) of a gaming machine and detecting, after the storing, an unrecoverable fault of the gaming machine. The operations further include determining, in response to detecting the unrecoverable fault, that criteria is satisfied for authorization of a partial deletion of the gaming data from the NVRAM. The operations further include determining, in response to determining that the criteria is satisfied, a first portion of the gaming data to retain on the NVRAM, and deleting, after determining the first portion of the gaming data to retain, a second portion of the gaming data without deleting the first portion of the gaming data. The operations can further include booting a game of the gaming machine to a default operational state using at least some of the first portion of the gaming data.

Inventors

Jacek Grabiec
Anandkumar Singh
Vignesh Kumar KRISHNAMOORTHY
Vijayakumar Balasubramanian

Assignees

LNW GAMING, INC.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20231214

Claims (18)

1 . A method comprising: storing, by an electronic processor, gaming data in a non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) of a gaming machine; detecting, by the electronic processor after the storing, an unrecoverable fault of the gaming machine; determining, by the electronic processor in response to detecting the unrecoverable fault, that criteria is satisfied for authorization of a partial deletion of the gaming data from the NVRAM; determining, by the electronic processor in response to determining that the criteria is satisfied, a first portion of the gaming data to retain on the NVRAM; deleting, by the electronic processor after determining the first portion of the gaming data to retain, a second portion of the gaming data without deleting the first portion of the gaming data; and booting, by the electronic processor, a game of the gaming machine to a default operational state using at least some of the first portion of the gaming data.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first portion of the gaming data comprises game configuration data, accounting data, progressive game configuration data, progressive game history data, game play history data, and event data stored in the NVRAM prior to occurrence of the unrecoverable fault.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the storing of the gaming data comprises storing, by the electronic processor, portions of the gaming data for each of a plurality of game cycles that occur for the gaming machine, and wherein the unrecoverable fault occurs as a result of a game state for a last of the plurality of game cycles that occurs immediately prior to the unrecoverable fault.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the second portion of the gaming data is associated with the last of the plurality of game cycles; and wherein the first portion of the gaming data is associated with others of the plurality of game cycles that occur prior to the last of the plurality of game cycles.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining that the criteria is satisfied comprises determining, by the electronic processor, that the first portion of the gaming data is authorized by a jurisdictional setting associated with the gaming machine.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining that the criteria is satisfied comprises determining, by the electronic processor, that accounting meters for the gaming machine are in a balanced state.
7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the determining that the account meters are in the balanced state comprises determining, by the electronic processor, that a first meter-subtotal value equates to a second meter-subtotal value, wherein the first meter-subtotal value consists of a total amount of credits in plus a total amount of credits won, and wherein the second meter-subtotal value consists of a total amount of credits out, plus a total amount of credits wagered, plus a current credit balance of the gaming machine.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining that the criteria is satisfied comprises determining, by the electronic processor via a sensor of a logic box of the gaming machine, that a door to the logic box is in an open state.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first portion of the gaming data comprises determining, by the electronic processor, that the first portion of the gaming data is one or more categories of data, wherein the second portion of the gaming data is not the one or more categories of data.
10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the one or more categories of data are authorized for retention on the NVRAM based on a jurisdictional rule associated with a location of the gaming machine.
11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first portion of the gaming data comprises reading, by the electronic processor, identifiers specified on an exclusion list, and wherein the deleting the second portion of the gaming data comprises deleting all files on the NVRAM that do not include the identifiers specified on the exclusion list.
12 . The method of claim 1 further comprising: in response to determining that the criteria is satisfied, presenting, by the electronic processor via a user interface of the gaming machine, a user-interface control that specifies an option to retain the first portion of the gaming data, and wherein the determining the first portion of the gaming data to retain is in response to detecting a user input that selects the option.
13 . The method of claim 1 further comprising rebooting, by the electronic processor, the gaming machine prior to detecting the unrecoverable fault.
14 . The method of claim 1 further comprising: in response to deleting the second portion of the gaming data, adding, by the electronic processor, an event record to the first portion of the gaming data, wherein the event record indicates information about one or more of the unrecoverable fault, the first portion of the gaming data that was retained, or the second portion of the gaming data that was erased.
15 . The method of claim 1 further comprising: determining, by the electronic processor, that the unrecoverable fault caused an unfinished game; incrementing, by the electronic processor, a games played meter and a games lost meter of the gaming machine; and presenting, by the electronic processor via a display of the gaming machine, a notification of a wager amount for the unfinished game.
16 . The method of claim 1 further comprising issuing, by the electronic processor in response to deleting the second portion of the gaming data, an exception event to an accounting host system communicatively coupled to the gaming machine.
17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least some of the first portion of the gaming data comprises configuration data stored, by the electronic processor, in the NVRAM prior to detecting the unrecoverable fault.
18 . A system comprising: a non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) of a gaming machine; an electronic processor configured to execute instructions, which when executed cause the system to perform operations to: store gaming data in the NVRAM; detect, after the gaming data is stored, an unrecoverable fault of the gaming machine; determine, in response to detection of the unrecoverable fault, that one or more criteria are satisfied for authorization of a partial deletion of the gaming data from the NVRAM; determine, in response to determination that the one or more criteria are satisfied, a first portion of the gaming data to retain on the NVRAM; delete, after determination of the first portion of the gaming data to retain, a second portion of the gaming data without deletion of the first portion of the gaming data; and boot a game of the gaming machine to a default operational state using at least some of the first portion of the gaming data.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS This patent application claims priority benefit to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/433,283 filed Dec. 16, 2022. The 63/433,283 Application is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. COPYRIGHT A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. Copyright 2023, LNW Gaming, Inc. FIELD The present invention relates generally to apparatus and methods for gaming machine configuration and reset due to fault conditions. BACKGROUND Currently, if a fault occurs on a gaming machine (e.g., via a bug in the code, via a power surge, via a random error, etc.), to recover the gaming machine from the fault an operator must perform, according to current gaming industry procedures, a time-intensive manual process. During this process, if the gaming machine is in an unrecoverable fault state, an operator attendant must access a physical cabinet of the gaming machine and clear (i.e., erase) an entire non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) associated with the gaming machine. Further, the attendant reconfigures (e.g., rewrites) the entire gaming machine NVRAM to a default operational state, which full rewrite and reconfiguration process can be lengthy (e.g., well over 15 minutes). Furthermore, during the current fault-condition recovery procedure, an attendant performs various interactions with a patron (e.g., regarding potential disputes and/or payments), as well as with any security staff and/or equipment to determine whether the patron had made a bet on the interrupted game and to determine or verify the physical amount of the bet (e.g., via monitoring of video cameras, etc.). Furthermore, the attendant must interact with any regulatory entity that is present (e.g., in the case of some jurisdictions that require it) to monitor the repayment and/or accounting procedures of the restored machine. Furthermore, in cases of a patron dispute, a patron must also await the slow fault-recovery procedure as part of the dispute resolution process. Thus, current fault-condition recovery procedures are extensive in their levels of manual data erasure, and intensive regarding physical interactions with people and/or machine hardware. This time-consuming process results in the gaming machine being kept out of commission for a significant amount of time while the machine is being recovered from the unrecoverable fault state. This prevents the gaming machine from being used for gaming purposes. It would be beneficial for an innovation that can quickly and easily recover a gaming machine from a fault condition to an operable condition, and which avoids the challenges associated with the current fault-condition recovery procedures. SUMMARY According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a system and/or method(s) to perform operations for storing gaming data in a non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) of a gaming machine and detecting, after the storing, an unrecoverable fault of the gaming machine. The operations further include determining, in response to detecting the unrecoverable fault, that criteria are satisfied for authorization of a partial deletion of the gaming data from the NVRAM. The operations further include determining, in response to determining that the criteria are satisfied, a first portion of the gaming data to retain on the NVRAM, and deleting, after determining the first portion of the gaming data to retain, a second portion of the gaming data without deleting the first portion of the gaming data. The operations can further include booting a game of the gaming machine to a default operational state using at least some of the first portion of the gaming data. Additional aspects of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the detailed description of various embodiments, which is made with reference to the drawings, a brief description of which is provided below. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example network according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 2 is a flow diagram that illustrates an example of resetting a gaming machine after a fault according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 3 is an illustration of prompting a game state reset according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 4 is an illustration of presenting a notification based on the game state reset according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 5 is an illustration of a gaming machine fault-recovery tool according to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure. FIG. 6 is an illustration of a gaming machine fault-recovery tool according to one or more e