Abstract: Gaming apparatus has a group of gaming machines each playable separately linked through a control unit to a display which shows prizes different from those offered by the machines. Players of the machines are occasionally offered a chance to win prizes from the display, and they may have to qualify for this by obtaining a particular result from their gaming machines. Several or all the players can qualify and so they participate together in the selection of prizes from the display, using controls on their machines. There are various ways of distributing those prizes, from winner takes all to a proportional distribution determined randomly or in relation to the performance of the players in the participation mode.