Systems and methods for conducting cashless gaming or player tracking within a gaming environment are disclosed. Players with associated player accounts are provided player tracking instruments having rewriteable displays. Also provided are gaming devices or machines having display panels adapted to display content and scan input through set display and read regions. Data on player tracking instruments is updated and displayed thereupon, and the input display panels of the gaming devices are used to read this data. These input display panels can also be used to read biometric information from players to confirm proper player account associations. The player tracking instruments may contain an RFID tag to receive communications from a transceiver associated with the gaming device or machine. A feedback loop from a master gaming controller to a transceiver to a player tracking instrument to an input display panel and back to the master gaming controller can be created.

A method and gaming machine/system designed or configured to provide security to cashless gaming system instruments, such as EZ PAY tickets, by placing authentication information data on the ticket. Player authentication data is acquired via an interface provided by a gaming machine and the data is then placed on a cashless instrument so that it may later be read and authenticated. Such instruments could then only be negotiated by the person identified by the player authentication data placed on the instrument.

An improved method and system for comparing database data. Data comparison may be performed either within a database or between two databases. Sets of cyclical redundancy check values may be created, at various points in time. Corresponding cyclical redundancy check values may be compared with each other to determine if the underlying data is different; differences may be displayed. Each cyclical redundancy check value may correspond to a user-determined amount of data within the database. The user-determined amount of data may be: (1) user-specified columns within one of the plurality of tables within the database; (2) a row within one of the plurality of tables within the database; (3) a table within the database; (4) the database in its entirety; or (5) any other subset of the database. A user-determined number of bytes corresponding to a user-determined subset of the user-determined amount of data may be stored for future use.

A cashless gaming system and method of securely transferring a monetary value. When "cashing-out" of a first terminal of the system, the monetary value is encrypted with an encryption key and an encryption algorithm to produce an encrypted monetary value. A transaction code is associated with encryption key and the monetary value. The transaction code and encrypted monetary value are written to a transportable medium that is issued by the first terminal. The transaction code and associated encryption key are stored in a key repository database. The transaction code and monetary value are stored in an accounting database which is securely separate from the key repository database. The transportable medium is taken to a second terminal where the encrypted monetary value and transaction code are read. The encryption key associated with the transaction code is retrieved and used to decrypt the encrypted monetary value. The monetary value is then credited to the second terminal.

A gaming machine that authenticates its gaming software substantially continuously and repetitiously while the gaming machine is powered on. A processor, while running the gaming machine's gaming program, determines whether the data in each of a plurality of memories is authentic. The processor may read multiple memories in a parallel fashion while making memory contents authenticity determinations. The processor may also read multiple memories in a serial fashion while making memory contents authenticity determinations. The processor may also read same memories in a parallel fashion and read other memories in a serial fashion while determining the authenticity of each memory's contents. Furthermore, the contents of a memory may be analyzed to decipher between executable data and graphics data such that the executable data's authenticity is determined more often than the graphics data's authenticity.