Various methods for administering a tournament game on a plurality of gaming machines are disclosed herein. According to one method, at least one networked gaming machine is reconfigured into a tournament mode. A gaming system then establishes one or more tournament bonus prizes. The tournament game play is initiated on the networked gaming machine. One or more tournament bonus prizes are awarded if a preselected criteria is achieved during play of the tournament game. At the conclusion of the tournament game, one or more tournament prizes are awarded to one or more winners of the tournament game.