SYSTEM FOR USING TRADING CARDS INTERACTIVELY THROUGH AN ELECTRONIC NETWORK

A system for using trading cards interactively through an electronic network, such as the Internet, combines uniquely identified trading cards with specially designed electronic services. Each trading card, which designates a game player, such as a sports talent, has associated therewith a unique identifier of alphanumeric characters. The game playing rights to a subset of these trading cards is sold to a plurality of card collectors, the game players designated by the cards of each subset forming a game playing “team” to be managed by the respective card collector. The collector registers selected ones of the cards from his/her subset of cards with a game service provider, thus placing the game players designated by the selected cards “in play”. Thereafter, the game service provider determines current information about each game player in play and advances the status of the game between the collectors whose game players are in play in accordance with the current information and in accordance with the rules of the game. The collectors can change the selected ones of the cards which are registered with the game service provider in an attempt to improve their chances of winning a game.