There are, of course, games where players select between two states, such as in 2-Up where a player endeavours to estimate whether two coins thrown in the air will land with their heads up (heads), their tails up (tails) or one of each, that is one head and one tail.

2-Up, and other games having similar characteristics, are played on each result and a bet is won or lost on whether the correct result has been obtained.

In some versions of the game, if one head and one tail show then there is a stand off, bets are neither paid nor taken by the House and stand for the next throw.

There are other games, such as lotto games, where a player endeavours to bet that certain numbers from a total set will be drawn in a number of draws of the numbers.

In these games, there is generally no concern about the order in which the numbers are drawn simply whether, at the end of the draw, the numbers drawn and the numbers selected by either player coincide.

In lotto games, there are normally graduated prizes depending upon the number of correct selections made.

It is the object of the present invention to provide a game whereby a player endeavours to select the state of a number of results each of which can have at least two states.

The invention, in its broadest sense, includes a gambling game wherein the result is obtained by a player selecting from a number of results each of which can have at least two states, the correct states of some or all of the results.

The game can either be played as an ancillary to another game, such as Lotto or Keno, in which the player endeavours to select the properties of the results of the numbers drawn in the lotto game other than that used in the game, such as whether the numbers are odd or even.

The game can also be played in its own right by a player selecting certain characteristics of a number of results.

The most usual characteristic would be whether the numbers are odd or even but other characteristics could also be used.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood I shall describe certain embodiments of this.

In the first embodiment I will describe the game as applied to a Keno game and, in this, the game is played ancillary to the playing of Keno.

Depending upon the requirements of the operator, the game of the invention can be played independently of playing Keno, or the operator could make a pre-requisite that the player has to be playing Keno before entering the game of the invention.

In a usual type of Keno game there are eighty balls and, in playing the game, twenty of these balls are drawn.

In playing Keno itself, a player can designate a certain number of balls and the actual numbers of these balls and, if the balls drawn include the numbers selected by the player, then the player wins.

It will be appreciated that the smaller number of balls selected the greater the likelihood of success and, in Keno, the odds paid to a successful player varies substantially depending upon the number of results selected.

In the first form of the present game, the player elects, for a certain number of balls, for the purposes of this we will say in order of being drawn, whether or not the numbers of the balls are odd or even.

Whilst each selection has a one in two probability of being correct the likelihood of being correct, even over relatively small numbers, is low. The likelihood over, say, the total of twenty numbers drawn is very low indeed.

Of course, the player only has to be wrong in selection of any ball being odd or even to lose.

The probability of success is 2n when n is the number of results the player is endeavouring to select. Thus, if a player was looking at, say, five numbers in a Keno draw there would be a one in thirty-two chance of having a correct result. If the player is looking at a correct result for all twenty numbers then the odds would be one in 1,048,576.

As far as wagering on the game is concerned, this may be done in a number of forms.

The total amount wagered could be divided into effective pools with the pools for the higher number of results being attempted being greater than those pools for the more straight forward lower number of results, the pools being in approximately the order of

difficulty. Alternatively, there can be a separate pool based on the amount wagered for each possible number of results being selected.

It may be that the game has initial pools established and, as the game continues, there will tend to be a jackpotting of the more difficult pool or pools, and payment on the more straight forward pools. This would mean that a person who selected a substantial number of results may well receive a jackpot which is higher than the theoretical odds but the arrangement could well be that there is a minimum result for a winner in any particular pool.

If, by any chance, the pool is won more regularly than expected initially then there will be a"debt"to the pool which can be"re-paid"once the pool becomes higher than the minimum promised and the re-payment could be by paying all of the additional money to re-pay the debt until this is fully paid before the pool increases beyond its minimum or it could be that a certain percentage of the amount above the minimum is used to re- pay the debt so that the pool is shown to the players to be increasing beyond its minimum.

In a second form of the game the player may select the numbers drawn to be the numbers on which his selections are made.

Thus, for example, a player could decide to select the result on the first, fifth, tenth, fifteenth and twentieth number drawn and the result is selected from the correctness or otherwise of the selections.

This form of game may be played in association with the previous form as the odds involved will be identical to somebody selecting the same number of results commencing from the first. Again, any incorrect selection leads to a loss to the player.

In a still further form of the game the results may be payable on the basis of the number of correct selections made by a player in a particular pool.

For example, if a player makes ten selections and, say, eight of these selections are correct, then the player could be deemed to have won but not to the extent that the win would have been, had all ten selections been correct.

In all of these games it is, of course, necessary that prior to the pool being established the operator removes, from the total sum bet, any payment which must be made to a Statutory Licensing Authority and a percentage for the operation of the game, which again would normally be set by the Licensing Authority and the remainder of the bets are used to establish the pool (s).

In a further embodiment, instead of playing the game as one which is ancillary to a game such as keno or lotto, it can be played in its own right in which case a random number generator which could be used which develops either ones or zeros, the player makes his selection in a manner similar to those of the previous games but using a one or a zero for the selection rather than an odd or even.

In this case, the methods of selecting a winning player and the pay out can be deemed to be identical to those of the previous games.

In a still further embodiment, instead of using either odds and evens or ones and zeros, one can use some different characteristic of the result being used.

For example, we mentioned that in a normal Keno game the numbers are drawn from a set of numbers from one to eighty. In this case, it would be possible to use, say, the decades from one to ten, eleven to twenty, twenty-one to thirty and so on and these could possibly be designating as zero, one, two, three..... seven.

In this case, the order or difficulty is very much less than in the case where one is selecting a characteristic such as odd or even and the odds would be adjusted accordingly.

The game is also playable as an ancillary to a lotto game where, say, eight numbers are drawn from forty-five possible numbers and could also be applied to such games as 2-Up, referred to earlier, where the player is endeavouring to select the results of a number of plays of 2-Up.

In this case, if there were no pay on the original game for one of each then the player of the present invention could make a selection based purely on the actual winning results, such as heads or tails. Alternatively, the player could be placed in a position of having to decide not only whether the result is to be heads or tails but also whether it is to be one of each.

This, of course, makes it much more complicated as, as there is only one result for two heads and one result for two tails, there are two results each of which show a one of each and as such, statistically, some fifty percent of throws should be a one of each and twenty-five percent each for heads and tails.

Once the concept of the game is appreciated it will readily be appreciated how it can be applied to various other games and the invention relates to the application of any such games.

Whilst we have described particular embodiments of the invention it is to be understood that other modifications can be deemed to be within the spirit and scope of the invention.