Online, real-time game playing with serving of pages of information to a multitude of players

Abstract

A central gaming server transmits game lobby pages to a multitude of distributed computing devices accessing a gaming website or websites over a network such as the Internet. To overcome scalability problems in keeping the lobby displays up-to-date and accurate in all the participating distributed workstations, particularly in a dynamic gaming environment where hundreds or thousands of games may be going on simultaneously, game or player data in the lobby displays is transmitted as individual pages along with icons by which the users of the computing devices can request additional pages. Updates are performed for only the displayed pages. This approach provides a significant improvement in server and network performance over prior techniques in which all game statistics for a particular selected type of game (or statistics on all the current players) was sent to each workstation and the workstation would scroll through the entire data set as necessary to view all the game or player data.

1 . Apparatus comprising: 
 a machine readable medium storing a set of program instructions, said instructions comprising instructions for displaying a game lobby page on a user interface of a computing device,    wherein the game lobby page displays information as to a game type available for play over a computer network and, for the game type, information as to individual instances of games of said game type or players playing in games of the game type, and    wherein the game lobby page includes a page icon wherein information on additional instances of said games or players playing in games of the game type not included on the lobby page may be requested from a gaming server in the form of an additional page or pages.    
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the game type comprises a card game and wherein the individual instances of games comprises a virtual card table.  
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the game type comprises a card game and wherein the individual instances of games comprises a tournament of said card game.  
   
   
       4 . The apparatus of  claim 3 , wherein said card game comprises a wager game.  
   
   
       5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the machine readable instructions are stored on a general purpose computer and wherein the instructions are downloaded from a server to the computer over the Internet.  
   
   
       6 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein when a game lobby page is displayed on the computing device, the page is periodically updated by transmission of an updated page from the gaming server, and wherein game information for non-displayed instances of games not included in the game lobby page are not periodically updated.  
   
   
       7 . A gaming server providing updated game information to a plurality of distributed computing devices engaging in game playing over a computer network, comprising: 
 a processing unit;    a database coupled to the processing unit storing game information data for a plurality of instances of games, wherein the database is updated to store real-time or near real time information as to the plurality of instances of games,    and wherein the gaming server provides periodic updates to displays of instances of games to the plurality of distributed computing devices by means of transmitting pages of said data, and wherein game information for instances of a game type not included in the pages of data are not periodically updated at the computing devices, thereby improving the ability of said server to update the plurality of distributed computing devices in real time or substantial real time without substantial degradation in performance of the gaming server.    
   
   
       8 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the games comprise card games and wherein the instances of said card games each comprises a virtual card table.  
   
   
       9 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the games comprise card games and wherein the instances of said card games each comprises a tournament of said card game.  
   
   
       10 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the database stores a list of players currently playing games and wherein the gaming server provides periodic updates to displays of players playing games to the plurality of distributed computing devices by means of transmitting pages of said data, and wherein pages containing player information that are not currently displayed on the distributed computing devices are not periodically updated at the computing devices.  
   
   
       11 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the server receives a page request for information as to additional instances of games, and wherein the requested page is transmitted to a requesting computing device over the Internet.  
   
   
       12 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the database stores game information for a plurality of wager games, the game information for each of the wager games comprising statistics for a plurality of virtual card tables playing said wager games, and wherein the display includes a display of the statistics.  
   
   
       13 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein: 
 the gaming server stores state information for each of the distributed computing devices, the state information including a current display on the distributed computing devices; and wherein    in the event that a distributed computing device is currently displaying a game lobby page to a user of the distributed computing device the gaming server periodically transmits an updated lobby page corresponding to the displayed lobby page to the distributed computing device but does not transmit updated information for instances of games not included in the game lobby page.    
   
   
       14 . A method of periodically updating displays of game information on a plurality of distributed computing devices connected to a server over a computer network, comprising the steps of: 
 presenting game information as to a plurality of instances of games on the display of the plurality of distributed computing devices in the form of a page of game information;    maintaining state information at the server, including the current page displayed for each of the distributed computing devices; and    the server periodically updating the displayed page on each of the distributed computing devices by transmitting an updated page to each of the distributed computing devices, wherein only the displayed page at the distributed computing devices is updated and wherein game information for other instances of games not included in the page of game information are not updated at the computing devices.    
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the game information is presented as a lobby page, wherein the lobby page displays a plurality of game types and a plurality of instances of games of at least one of the game types, and wherein the display of the plurality of instances of games includes an icon providing a user to request transmission of an additional page of game information for additional instances of the game.  
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the games comprise card games, wherein the plurality of instances of games comprise a plurality of virtual card tables.  
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the games comprise card games and wherein the instances of said card games each comprises a tournament of said card game.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the game types include at least one poker game, and wherein the plurality of instances of the poker game comprise virtual poker tables.  
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the games are selected from the group consisting of poker, blackjack, punto banco, craps, and bridge.  
   
   
       20 . A method of providing game lobby pages to a multitude of distributed computing devices connected to a server over a computer network, the game lobby page displaying information for a plurality of instances of games, comprising the steps of: 
 receiving a request for a game lobby page from each of the multitude of distributed computing devices; and    transmitting a game lobby page from the gaming server to each of the multitude of distributed computing devices, wherein each game lobby page includes an icon providing the user with the ability to request additional pages and wherein information, if requested, for instances of games not displayed on the game lobby page is requested and transmitted to each of the multitude of distributed computing devices as one or more pages.    
   
   
       21 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the server maintains state information, including the current page displayed for each of the multitude of distributed computing devices; and 
 wherein the server periodically updates the displayed page on each of the distributed computing devices by transmitting an updated page to each of the distributed computing devices, wherein only the displayed page at the distributed computing devices is updated and wherein game information for other, non-displayed instances of games are not updated at the computing devices.    
   
   
       22 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the game lobby page displays a plurality of game types and wherein a selection of a game type presents a display of a plurality of instances of the game type in the form of a page of game information for the plurality of instances and a page icon wherein additional instances of the game type may be requested.  
   
   
       23 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the game lobby page displays information for a plurality of virtual card tables.  
   
   
       24 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the game lobby page displays information for a plurality of tournaments.  
   
   
       25 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the game lobby page displays a page of players currently playing games and a page icon whereby additional pages of players may be requested for transmission.  
   
   
       26 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the server communicates with the distributed computing devices in a distributed network gaming topology.  
   
   
       27 . The gaming server of  claim 7 , wherein the server communicates with the distributed computing devices in a centralized network gaming topology.