1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a game machine that is installed in a game place and a monitor system capable of picking-up the image of the game place and displaying the picked-up image.
2. Related Art
Generally, a monitor system (as one example, a camera monitor system disclosed in JP-A-3-93379) is disposed in a pachinko parlor for the purpose of detecting a fire generated in the parlor or an illegal behavior by a player. The monitor system of this kind comprises a plurality of monitor cameras disposed in the vicinity of such as a ceiling of the parlor to pick-up the images of the parlor. The monitor system further includes a controller disposed in a management room for controlling a plurality of images (images in the parlor) based on video signals respectively outputted by the monitor cameras to be displayed on a single monitor capable of dividing and displaying the plural images on one screen or to be displayed on a plurality of monitors capable of individually displaying the respective images. In this case, the controller controls the images based on the video signals respectively outputted by the monitor cameras to be switched and displayed on the single monitor or the plural monitors in accordance with a prescribed sequence or a sequence set by an operator. At this time, when the operator detects any abnormality in the switched and displayed images, the operator selects and operates the monitor camera which picks-up an image of a place corresponding to the image or the monitor camera capable of more clearly picking up the image of the place. Thus, the fire in the parlor or a wrong behavior by a player can be detected in the management room.
However, such kind of conventional monitor system has following problems. Such a conventional monitor system employs monitor cameras disposed in the vicinity of the ceiling to display images for monitoring the parlor on the monitors. On the other hand, a person who conducts an illegal behavior allows, for instance, the person himself (or herself) or a pachinko machine board as a target of the illegal behavior to be surrounded and hidden by an accomplice to interrupt the image picking-up operation of the illegal behavior by the monitor cameras. At this time, when only the images displayed on the monitors are monitored by the controller, the image of the display part of the game machine for which the illegal behavior is conducted is not picked-up. Accordingly, it is difficult to discriminate whether the accomplice who surrounds the player intentionally blocks an image pick-up operation or they simply watch a game. Therefore, the conventional monitor system has a problem that a certain image of the illegal behavior by the person who conducts the illegal behavior is hardly picked-up and detected.
In this case, a monitor method may be proposed that more monitor cameras are disposed in the pachinko parlor to switch and control respectively the monitor cameras so that the images of players or game machines are picked-up from all angles. However, in this monitor method, many monitor cameras are disposed in the parlor, which causes ordinary players who have no intention to perform the illegal behavior to have discomfort. Further, even when the number of monitor cameras installed in the parlor is increased, many people can surround the player or the game machine to interrupt the image picking-up operation. Thus, the certain image of the illegal behavior is still hardly picked-up and detected.
The present invention is proposed by taking the above-described problems into consideration and it is a main object of the present invention to provide a game machine and a monitor system capable of reliably picking-up an image of an illegal behavior. Further, it is another object of the present invention to provide a game machine and a monitor system capable of monitoring a game place without giving an uneasy feeling to players.