JP2002113249A - Game medium renting device and system therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a game medium renting device which can precisely totalize the amount of sales. SOLUTION: In the game medium renting device to rent game mediums corresponding to currency put into, a storage medium releasably attached to store the amount of rent and an action prohibiting means, which prohibits the action of the game medium renting device when the storage medium is not attached to a predetermine location, are provided. The storage medium has an identification number, which is given in a manufacturing stage and cannot be erased by a user, and is configured so as to store the amount of rent in a time-series manner.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a pachinko game machine,
The present invention relates to a game medium lending apparatus and system for renting game media used for a game machine such as a coin game machine or a slot machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventionally known game medium lending apparatus has, for example, a money accepting section for accepting money.
When the player inserts money into the money receiving unit, the game medium is lent to the player using the monetary value of the inserted money.

In the conventional game medium lending device, information that can specify the amount of the rented game medium, that is, sales information, is transmitted to a terminal computer (management computer) for managing a game arcade, and is transmitted to the terminal computer. The computer is configured so that sales information can be totaled.

[0004]

In a game arcade equipped with this type of game media lending device, sales information of all game media lending devices in the game arcum is generally collected by a management computer installed in the game arcade. I'm going.

[0005] Even when the collective management is performed as described above, if the connection between the management computer and the game medium lending device is temporarily disconnected, the sales information during the disconnection is input to the management computer. Accurate sales information cannot be aggregated.

[0006] When such wrongful means are used to declare incorrect sales information to the outside, such as declaring a small amount of sales information to an external organization such as a tax office, etc. There was an inconvenience.

[0007] The present invention has been made in view of such a point, and an object of the present invention is to play a game in which a storage medium for storing a loan amount is not operated unless it is mounted at a predetermined position. A media lending device and system are provided.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided a game medium lending apparatus for renting a game medium according to inserted money, wherein a detachably mounted storage medium for storing a lending amount, and An operation prohibiting means for prohibiting the operation of the game medium lending device when not mounted at a predetermined position, wherein the storage medium has an identification number which is given at a manufacturing stage and cannot be erased by a user, A game medium lending device characterized by storing a lending amount in time series.

Preferably, the game medium lending device stores in advance the identification number of the storage medium to be mounted in the memory, and when the identification number of the mounted storage medium matches the number stored in the memory in advance. The operation of the game medium lending device is permitted, and when the operations do not match, the operation prohibiting means prohibits the operation of the game medium lending device.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a game medium lending system having a game medium lending device for lending game media in accordance with the inserted money, and a terminal computer connected to the game medium lending device, A storage medium for storing a lending amount removably attached to the game medium lending device, and a terminal medium for prohibiting operation of the game medium lending device when the storage medium is not mounted at a predetermined position. A game medium lending system, characterized in that the storage medium has an identification number assigned at the manufacturing stage and cannot be erased by the user, and the lending amount is stored in chronological order. Is provided.

Preferably, the terminal computer stores in advance a number of the game medium lending device and an identification number of a storage medium to be mounted on the game medium lending device in a memory, and the terminal computer is mounted on a specific game medium lending device. When the identification number of the storage medium matches the number stored in the memory in advance, the operation of the game medium lending device is permitted, and when the identification numbers do not match, the operation prohibiting means prohibits the operation of the game medium lending device.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a schematic front view of a table ball lending machine 4 to which the present invention can be applied.

In recent pachinko halls, it is common to arrange a pachinko ball lending machine (ball lending device) 4 for each pachinko gaming machine 2, and a player of each pachinko gaming machine 2 is arranged on the left side. He inserts money into the money slot of the ball lending machine and purchases pachinko balls.

In FIG. 1, a bill lending machine 4 has a bill insertion slot 6
And a coin slot 8 are provided, and a pachinko discharge pipe (nozzle) 10 extends toward the upper plate 12 of the pachinko gaming machine 2. 14 is a 7-segment amount indicator,
For example, when 1000 yen is inserted into the bill insertion slot 6, 10 is displayed on the display 14.

The change after the pachinko balls have been purchased is returned to the change return port 16. Reference numeral 15 denotes a display lamp for displaying the state of the ball lending machine 4, which is turned on when, for example, a digital storage medium described later is not mounted. Reference numeral 18 denotes a clearing / exchange button, and reference numeral 20 denotes a ball lending button. 22 is a top plate fixed above the pachinko gaming machine.

Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown a block diagram of a bill-conveying type ball lending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.
The control unit 24 including a CPU or the like operates by being supplied with electricity from the power supply unit 26. The control unit 24 is a terminal computer (management computer) 28 installed in the game arcade.
It is connected to the.

The bill inserted into the bill insertion slot 6 is discriminated by the bill validator 30 to determine its type and whether the bill is correct. The banknote whose identification has been completed is conveyed to the outside of the ball lending machine by the banknote conveying device 32 and stocked. Coin slot 8
Is discriminated by the coin selector 34 as a 100-yen coin or a 500-yen coin.

The ball presence / absence sensor 36 detects whether a predetermined amount of pachinko balls are accommodated in the ball lending machine. The ball lending mechanism 38 is a mechanism that discharges pachinko balls to the pachinko ball discharge pipe 10 according to the inserted amount. For example, when a 100 yen coin is inserted, 24 pachinko balls are discharged.

The display lamp 15 indicates the state of the ball lending machine as described above. The 7-segment display 14 displays the amount of money inserted as described above. For example, 500
When a circle is inserted, 5 is displayed, and when 1000 yen is inserted, 10 is displayed.

A digital storage medium 40 for storing a lending amount, a lending date and time, and the like is detachably mounted on the ball lending machine of the present invention. When the digital storage medium 40 is not mounted, control for preventing the ball lending machine from operating is performed by hardware or software.

As the digital storage medium 40, SD memory cards, smart media, compact flash, memory stick, MMC, etc., all of which are trade names, can be adopted.

Referring to FIG. 3, there is shown a block diagram of a coin-type ball lending machine according to another embodiment of the present invention.
The coin-type ball lending machine of the present embodiment is obtained by removing the banknote discriminating machine 30 and the banknote conveying device 32 from the banknote conveying type ball lending machine shown in FIG. 2, and the other configurations are the same.

Referring to FIG. 4, there is shown a block diagram of a medal lending machine according to still another embodiment of the present invention. The medal lending machine of the present embodiment is similar to the configuration of the bill-conveying type ball lending machine shown in FIG. 2, and replaces the ball presence / absence sensor 36 of FIG. 2 with the medal presence / absence sensor 44 and the ball lending mechanism 38. A medal lending mechanism 42 is provided. The coin selector 34 shown in FIG. 2 may be provided.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the data format of the digital storage medium 40. Each digital storage medium is provided with an identification number (ID number) for identifying the storage medium and the number of a ball rental machine to which the storage medium is to be attached.

In particular, the ID number is given at the stage of manufacturing, and is configured so that the user cannot erase it. The ball lending machine number is also given at the manufacturing stage, and may be configured so that the user cannot erase it.

In this case, the ball lending machine and the digital storage medium 40 are specified in a one-to-one relationship, and the digital storage medium cannot be mounted on a ball lending machine other than the specified ball lending machine.

Ball Lending Machine Number and ID of Digital Storage Medium 40
The relationship with the number is stored in the memory inside the ball lending machine or in the memory of the terminal computer 28.

When a new digital storage medium is to be mounted on a specific ball lending machine, it is necessary to rewrite the memory inside the ball lending machine or the memory of the terminal computer 28.

The digital storage medium 40 stores the loan amount in time series, and further stores whether or not data has been transmitted to the terminal computer 28. Digital storage medium 40
Stores data for a predetermined period, for example, data for one month. For example, assuming that storage starts on the first day of a certain month, the data for the first day of the current month is erased on the first day of the following month,
The data for the first day of the following month is written instead.

The transmission of the data stored in each ball rental machine is performed, for example, by polling from the terminal computer 28. Alternatively, a timer may be set in the ball lending machine, and data may be transmitted to the terminal computer 28 at predetermined time intervals.

When the pachinko hall is closed, the data of all the digital storage media arranged in the hall is read into the terminal computer 28.
Since the closing operation of No. 8 is manual, reading is impossible.
This read failure is processed when the store is opened the next day.

Next, an example of the operation of the ball lending machine according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. First, step S
When the money is inserted in step 1, it is determined in step S2 whether the storage medium 40 is mounted. This determination is performed by hardware using, for example, a microswitch, and the information is transmitted to the controller 24 and / or the terminal computer 2 of the ball lending machine.
8

If it is determined in step S2 that the storage medium has not been loaded, the process proceeds to step S3, where the money is returned and the process ends. If it is determined in step S2 that the storage medium is mounted, the process proceeds to step S4, and it is determined whether the ID number of the mounted digital storage medium 40 matches the ID number stored in advance. .

The ID number is stored in the memory of the ball rental machine or the memory of the terminal computer 28. If it is determined in step S4 that the ID numbers do not match,
Proceed to step S5, return the money, and end the process.

If it is determined in step S4 that the ID numbers match, the flow advances to step S6 to determine whether a predetermined amount of pachinko balls has been stored. If it is determined in step S6 that the predetermined amount of pachinko balls has not been stored, the process proceeds to step S7, where the money is returned and the process ends.

If it is determined in step S6 that a predetermined amount of pachinko balls have been stored, the flow advances to step S8 to determine whether or not the inserted money is genuine.

If it is determined in step S8 that the money is not genuine, the process proceeds to step S9, in which the inserted money is returned and the processing is terminated. If it is determined in step S8 that the coin is a genuine coin, the process proceeds to step S10, and it is determined whether or not the date, time, and inserted amount have been stored in the digital storage medium.

Although this determination is normally affirmative, for example, when the storage capacity of the digital storage medium is full or when the digital storage medium is damaged, the data cannot be stored, and therefore, the process proceeds to step S11. Willingly return the money and end the process.

If it is determined in step S10 that the predetermined data has been stored, the flow advances to step S12 to lend pachinko balls in accordance with the amount of the inserted money.

The negative judgment in step S2 constitutes the operation inhibiting means of the present invention. Further, the negative determination in step S4 also constitutes the operation prohibiting means of the present invention.

This operation inhibiting means may be built in each ball lending machine, or may be controlled based on data transmitted from the ball lending machine so that the terminal computer 28 inhibits the operation of the ball lending machine. Is also good.

In step S4, it is determined whether or not the ID numbers match because, when a predetermined digital storage medium is removed and a new digital storage medium is mounted, the storage contents of the digital storage medium and the terminal computer 28 are determined. This is because it is not possible to perform a comparison with the stored contents of.

Referring to FIG. 7, there is shown an operation flowchart of the medal lending machine according to the embodiment of the present invention. Each of the processing steps S21 to S32 in FIG.
Similar to 1 to S12, except that the pachinko balls are changed to medals in steps S26 and S32. Therefore, description of each processing step of the present embodiment will be omitted.

Referring to FIG. 8, the digital storage medium 40
2 shows another example of the data format. The digital storage medium of this embodiment has only an identification number (ID number) for identifying the storage medium. The ID number is assigned at the manufacturing stage, and is configured so that the user cannot erase it.

A ball lending machine number is assigned to each ball lending machine in advance, and when a digital storage medium is mounted on the ball lending machine, the ball lending machine number with the storage medium is written in the digital storage medium. It is. Therefore, the lending amount is stored in the digital storage medium having the predetermined identification number in chronological order together with the ball lending machine number.

The store has a predetermined identification number (ID # 0001)
It is assumed that the digital storage medium is mounted on a predetermined ball lending machine (# 101). When a hardware trouble occurs in the predetermined ball lending machine (# 101), the store determines that the predetermined ball lending machine (# 101)
Is replaced with a spare ball lending machine (# 401).

In this case, a predetermined identification number (ID # 000)
I want to attach the digital storage medium of 1) to a spare ball lending machine (# 401). Therefore, in the data format of the digital storage medium of the present embodiment, a predetermined identification number (ID # 00)
In 01), the lending amount is stored in chronological order together with the ball lending machine number in the digital storage medium.

A third party who manages sales and the like has a pachinko parlor with a digital storage medium (ID # 0001) having a predetermined identification number.
To # 0300), and manages the passed storage medium.

A predetermined identification number (ID # 0001 to # 03)
If the lending amount is stored in chronological order together with the number of the ball lending machine in the storage medium of (00), the third party only manages the storage medium only, regardless of which ball lending machine the storage medium is attached to. , The sales amount of the store can be grasped.

[0050]

The game medium lending device of the present invention does not operate unless a storage medium is mounted, and the lending amount is stored in the storage medium in chronological order. The loan amount is accurately stored in the storage medium.

Even in the case where the sales of all the game media lending devices in the game arcade are centrally managed by the terminal computer in the game arcade, the contents stored in the storage medium and the content stored in the terminal computer are collated to check the terminal computer. Can be confirmed.

Further, since each storage medium stores the ID number and the number of the game medium lending device to be mounted, the third party can determine which storage medium is mounted on which game medium lending device at which store. Can be confirmed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of a pachinko game machine and a ball rental machine to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a bill-conveying type ball lending machine.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a coin-type ball lending machine.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a medal lending machine.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a data format of a digital storage medium.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an operation flowchart of the ball lending machine according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an operation flowchart of the medal lending machine of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing another example of the data format of the digital storage medium.

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 Ball Lending Machine 14 7-Segment Display 15 Indicator Lamp 24 Control Unit 28 Terminal Computer 30 Banknote Recognition Machine 32 Banknote Transfer Device 34 Coin Selector 36 Ball Presence Sensor 38 Ball Lending Mechanism 40 Digital Storage Medium

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A game medium lending device for renting a game medium according to the inserted money, wherein a detachably mounted storage medium for storing a lending amount, and the storage medium is not mounted at a predetermined position. An operation prohibiting unit for prohibiting the operation of the game medium lending device, wherein the storage medium has an identification number that is assigned at a manufacturing stage and cannot be erased by a user, and stores the lending amount in time series. A game media lending device characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The game medium lending device has a memory in which an identification number of the storage medium to be mounted is stored in advance, and the identification number of the mounted storage medium is stored in the memory in advance. 2. The game medium lending device according to claim 1, wherein the operation of the game medium lending device is permitted when the numbers match, and when the numbers do not match, the operation prohibiting means prohibits the operation of the game medium lending device. 3. A game medium lending system comprising: a game medium lending device for lending game media in accordance with the inserted money; and a terminal computer connected to the game medium lending device, wherein the game medium lending device is detachable from the game medium lending device. A storage medium for storing a lending amount that can be mounted, and operation prohibiting means provided in the terminal computer for prohibiting operation of the game medium lending device when the storage medium is not mounted at a predetermined position. A game medium lending system, wherein the storage medium has an identification number that is assigned at a manufacturing stage and cannot be erased by a user, and stores a lending amount in a time-series manner. 4. The terminal computer has a memory for storing a number of the game medium lending device and an identification number of the storage medium to be mounted on the game medium lending device. When the identification number of the game medium lending device matches the number stored in the memory in advance, the operation of the game medium lending device is permitted, and when the identification number does not match, the operation prohibiting unit prohibits the operation of the game medium lending device. The game media lending system according to claim 3. 5. The game medium lending device has a device number assigned in advance, and when the storage medium is mounted on the game medium lending device, the device number is written to the storage medium. The game media lending system according to claim 3, wherein