food vouchers services or other awards the gaming device 202 evaluates whether player a is eligible for an award step 4 this step may be performed in a similar manner to existing loyalty systems for example monitoring for minimum threshold of player points accumulated as a result of player activity following which an award is awarded which may be for example a number of credits if player a is eligible for an award then an award is awarded step 5 either automatically or at the request of player a referring now to fig4 b another player player b joins the loyalty programme like player a player b provides such details as may be required by the gaming venue operator and these are entered into the database 208 a associated with a player identifier for player b step 6 player b is then issued with a player identifier step 7 during the joining process or subsequent to the joining process it is identified that player b was referred to the loyalty programme by player a in response the gaming venue operator associates the identifier of player b with the identifier of player a in the database 208 a step 8 or otherwise associates player b with player a the joining process may be repeated for other players players c to m referred to the loyalty programme by player a each of which are allocated a player identifier that is associated.