Abstract: A system, method and intermediary for effecting a payment account transaction at a point of sale on behalf of a registrant while avoiding disclosure of its payment account information at the point of sale. The system comprises a merchant device at the point of sale for generating a partial authorization request, an authorizing instrument for providing authentication information of an authorized representative and the intermediary, located remotely from the point of sale, for receiving the partial request and the authentication. The intermediary retrieves the registrant's payment account information using the authentication, combines it with the partial request to form an authorization request and forwards it along the transaction network for processing. The authentication information may arrive with a subset of transaction information. The authorizing instrument may be located at the point of sale. A requesting instrument may request the authorizing instrument to forward the authentication information.

Abstract: The present invention provides for the transmission and conduct of a bingo game at more than one site, through the use of a private wide area network ("WAN"), on which participants are qualified and controlled. Each site has a PC computer, with peripheral equipment, which communicates on a WAN. This is done by the present invention with considerably less hardware setup cost at each location, and with a lower operating cost, than is found in the prior art. Access to the present invention is more easily controlled than under the video broadcast prior art, and unauthorized participants may be more easily excluded from participation.