There is provided a universal serial interconnection strategy which allows individual internal gaming machine components, sub-assemblies and sub-systems to be connected to a controller. Each component bears a globally unique identification number (GUIN) which allows the controller to recognize, enumerate and authenticate the device and to reconfigure itself or another programmable component of the gaming machine for proper communication with the device having the particular GUIN. In addition to internal gaming machine components, external components such as secondary or tertiary games may also be connected to a controller within a gaming machine to which the games are attached. The universal serial interconnection strategy of the invention thereby provides a "Plug-and-Play" (PNP) style interface which can eliminate the point-to-point interconnection of gaming machine components used in gaming machine of the prior art.