the machine is being used and stores a plurality of free game pots 48 51 one pot per bet amount option each pot is actually a dedicated memory location that stores the accumulated number of free games associated with that bet amount the cpu 40 interacts with the ram 47 when the ram 47 is loaded with the pertinent game software the cpu 40 calculates the free game pot amounts and stores the accumulated amounts in the free game pots the operation of the gaming machine of fig1 will be described with respect to the sample screen display of fig3 and the flowchart of fig4 as an initial matter the game program or a separate program controlling cpu 40 or a hardware circuit causes the ram 47 to dedicate certain memory locations to accumulating free games associated with each bet option step 60 in fig4 each such memory location is referred to as a free game pot for simplicity it is assumed that there are only three betting options for playing a single game 1 credit 5 credits and a maximum bet a game may be the rotation and random stoppage of five virtual reels 54 displaying a 5 u00d7 3 matrix of symbols sample symbols are shown awards are based upon whether the symbol combinations across paylines are winning combinations only three horizontal paylines pl 1 pl 2 pl 3 are shown in fig3 for simplicity.