VIDEO GAMING SYSTEM WITH FIXED POOL OF WINNING PLAYS AND GLOBAL POOL ACCESS

A gaming system (10) is provided including a central game processor (12), a plurality of master processing units (14) and a plurality of slave terminals (16) operable by players to play the game. The central game processor (12) communicates with the master processing units (14) and supplies the various games available to the system. The master processing units (14) store and administer the games as they are played on the slave terminals. A preferred game includes a fixed pool of game plays and a predetermined number of winning plays within each pool, Each player, through his or her slave terminal (16), can purchase plays in each fixed pool stored in the master processing unit (14) to which that unit is coupled. When a particular pool is exhausted, for example, through the purchase of all plays, the central game processor (12) provides another fixed pool of plays to that master processing unit to enable continuous play.