Apparatus for Dispensing a Lottery Ticket

Abstract

A lottery ticket is printed on a substrate sheet material having a front surface with lottery game indicia printed thereon and a removable covering material, typically scratch-off material, covering the lottery game indicia which is removable by a player to expose the game indicia for playing the game and other game information printed on the substrate sheet material where at least part of the substrate sheet material is formed of a translucent synthetic material to enable viewing through the part by the player. In order to allow the ticket to be dispensed in a row of the tickets from a dispensing machine with an optical sensor, a patch of an opaque or semi-opaque material is applied onto the substrate at a location to cooperate with the sensor while it is operating to detect ticket location.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation in part of application Ser. No. 15 / 357,506 filed Nov. 21, 2016 which is pending which is a continuation in part of application Ser. No. 14 / 718,666 filed May 21, 2015 which is abandoned.[0002]This invention relates to dispensing a scratch-off lottery ticket where at least a part of the ticket, carrying the lottery ticket information and the covering material applied thereto, is transparent or translucent.[0003]Also disclosed is a construction of the ticket and a method of playing a lottery ticket game where at a second ticket when viewed through a translucent part of a first ticket is arranged so that a characteristic of the translucent part exposes data on the second ticket which is not visible when viewed without the translucent part.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]Lottery tickets are well known and widely sold and typically comprise a sheet material of paper or card stock on which is printed lottery information and various indicia for the ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0027]For use with some arrangements of dispensing machines, the patch forms a strip along a center of the ticket and extends from a leading edge of the ticket to a trailing edge of the ticket. This prevents a centrally located optical sensor detecting a translucent area which it then determines to be a break in the strip which can trigger a shutdown of the dispensing system.

[0114]The tactile quality is obtained by selecting the characteristics so that the substrate is smooth and slick, giving the ticket a rich, high quality feel that is distinct from conventional scratch-off ticket substrates. It may also be textured or molded to add variety to the tactile sensation.

Problems solved by technology

This leads generally to a reduced level of security for break-opens generally thus limiting the prize value which can be provided.

However in all cases the substrate used has itself an initial high opacity level and other less opaque materials have thus been considered unsuitable.

Other less stable materials have thus been considered unsuitable.

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