The Symbol That Copies the Whole Screen A Bonus Round Where the Triggering Spin Sets What a Later Symbol Is Worth

This application covers an electronic gaming machine with a bonus round containing a particular kind of symbol, called a repeater, whose prize value is not fixed when it is designed or when it lands, but is calculated from the symbols that triggered the round in the first place. In the specification’s own example, a round triggered by symbols worth 10, 10, 10, 20, 20, 50 and 40 credits produces a repeater worth 160, and every repeater that appears during that round carries the same figure. It was filed by Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited and is the fourth divisional in an Australian chain that began in 2018. The distinguishing idea is a link between the trigger and the payout that most machines of this type do not have.

The Problem

The background describes the ordinary economics of a gaming machine. A player builds a credit balance, wagers from it, and a random number generator decides each outcome, with the machine engineered to a fixed return to player percentage over many plays. Both the percentage and the quality of the randomness are tightly regulated. Symbols appear in a grid, matching combinations along paylines determine wins, and the pay table tells the player what each combination is worth.

The document notes that many games qualify the player for a bonus round on a triggering event, and that these rounds exist to offer larger prizes and altered play than the base game can. Popularity, it says, depends heavily on the entertainment the machine provides.

The structural weakness being addressed sits in how bonus rounds usually handle value. Prize values on feature symbols are fixed in advance by the pay table, or drawn at random within a set range, and either way they are independent of the spin that opened the round. A player who triggers a round with a screen full of high value symbols gets exactly the same feature symbols afterwards as a player who scrapes in with the minimum. The quality of the trigger is forgotten the moment the round begins.

What This Invention Does

Claim 1 is written as an electronic gaming machine with substantial hardware recited: a display, a bank of buttons for wagering and initiating play, a random number generator, a credit input mechanism that receives a physical item such as cash or a printed ticket to establish a credit balance, and meters including a credit meter and a win meter.

The memory stores a symbol set divided into configurable symbols, which can hold a value, and non-configurable symbols, which cannot, across two symbol presentation stages. Critically, the claim specifies that the configurable symbols include a repeater symbol whose value is not assigned until the second symbol presentation stage is triggered.

The game plays out as follows. The controller runs a first presentation stage, generating an outcome and displaying symbols selected with the random number generator. If a triggering number of configurable symbols appears, it starts a second stage with an initial quantity of instances. The claim then treats two groups of instances differently, which is an unusual piece of drafting. For each instance of the initial quantity, the machine selects and displays replacement symbols for the positions not occupied by configurable symbols. For each instance of an additional quantity, if any additional instances are awarded, the machine both keeps each displayed configurable symbol and replaces symbols in the positions those kept symbols do not occupy. The overall shape is the hold and spin structure Aristocrat is widely credited with popularising, with the retention step written explicitly into the extension instances.

The result of the second stage is determined from the value of each configurable symbol on the grid at the end of it. The closing wherein clause is the point of the whole claim: the value of the repeater symbol is determined based on a value of one or more configurable symbols that were displayed in the first stage outcome that triggered the second stage. Claim 2 narrows this to summing the values of each of those triggering symbols. On conclusion, credits are awarded to the win meter or the credit meter.

The repeater is therefore a symbol whose worth is set retrospectively by the quality of the spin that opened the feature. A strong trigger produces a repeater worth a great deal for the rest of the round, and every repeater landing later in that round carries the same inherited figure.

Key Features

• Value inherited from the trigger. The repeater symbol’s worth is calculated from the configurable symbols in the outcome that started the bonus round, not from a pay table or an independent random draw.
• Summing as the stated method. Claim 2 defines the repeater’s value as the sum of the values of every triggering configurable symbol, so a better trigger produces a proportionally larger repeater.
• Assignment deferred to the trigger event. The claim requires that the repeater’s value is not assigned until the second presentation stage is triggered, making the deferral a claim element rather than an implementation detail.
• A mixed symbol economy. Dependent claims allow other configurable symbols to carry predefined values or progressive values, so the repeater operates alongside both fixed and growing prizes.
• Two tiers of bonus instance. Initial instances and additional instances are recited separately, with the explicit retention of configurable symbols written into the additional group.
• Payout by summation at the close. A further claim determines the second stage award at least in part on the sum of the values of the configurable symbols showing when the stage completes.
• Physical credit handling in the claim. A credit input mechanism receiving a physical item, plus credit and win meters, are claim elements rather than background context.

Who Is Behind It

Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited is the Australian operating company within Aristocrat Leisure Limited, a Sydney headquartered business founded in 1953 that has grown into one of the largest gaming machine and casino systems suppliers in the world. Its land based product division publishes its cabinet and game range at aristocratgaming.com.

One inventor is named: Daniel Marks. Marks also appears on AU 2026202116, an Aristocrat application published in the same journal issue claiming a bonus round built around mystery symbols rather than repeater symbols, which suggests a single design programme producing several distinct symbol behaviours for one feature framework.

The divisional chain here is the longest of Aristocrat’s filings in this batch. AU 2026202123 is a divisional of Australian application 2024201253, which is a divisional of 2022200079, which is a divisional of 2019264644, which is a divisional of Australian application 2018203489. That is four generations. The specification contains no claim to any foreign provisional or convention application, so on the material available the priority is Australian, and the table records it that way rather than assuming a United States origin as some sibling filings in this family have.

Why It Matters

Feature symbols with inherited values change the incentive structure of a bonus round in a way that is easy to describe and hard to copy without running into something. Because the repeater takes its figure from the triggering spin, the value of the whole round is decided partly before the round begins, which gives the trigger a significance it does not ordinarily carry. It also gives the designer a lever that scales with the wager, since higher denomination configurable symbols produce a proportionally higher repeater without any change to the underlying return to player calculation that regulators assess.

The filing history is the clearest signal of commercial value. Keeping a chain alive through four successive Australian divisionals over eight years is expensive and deliberate. Each divisional lets the applicant pursue a different slice of claim scope from the same disclosure, a standard tactic where a mechanic is shipping in product and competitors are building around it.

The broader context is a market where a handful of suppliers compete on feature design across a largely saturated installed base. When the core mathematics are effectively locked by regulation, differentiation moves entirely into how prize information is structured and revealed. A symbol that inherits its value from the moment the feature was won is exactly that kind of differentiation: no change to the payout percentage, a substantial change to how the round reads to the player.

Related Concepts

• Slot machine – the game format the two stage feature is built on.
• Light and Wonder – a principal competitor filing on comparable feature mechanics.
• Nevada Gaming Control Board – a regulator that assesses machine mathematics in the industry’s largest market.
• Prior art – what a divisional four generations deep must be distinguished from.
• IP Australia patents – the office that publishes each generation of the chain.
• AU 2026202123 on IP Australia – the official register record for this application.

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AU 2026202123 was published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents on 9 April 2026 and is open for public inspection. Patent applications represent inventions that are sought to be protected and do not necessarily reflect commercially available products.