Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A63—SPORTS; GAMES; AMUSEMENTS
  • A63F—CARD, BOARD, OR ROULETTE GAMES; INDOOR GAMES USING SMALL MOVING PLAYING BODIES; VIDEO GAMES; GAMES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • A63F3/00—Board games; Raffle games
  • A63F3/06—Lottos or bingo games; Systems, apparatus or devices for checking such games
  • A63F3/065—Tickets or accessories for use therewith
  • A63F3/0665—Tickets or accessories for use therewith having a message becoming legible after rubbing-off a coating or removing an adhesive layer

Definitions

• This invention relates to game tickets, and in particular relates to lottery tickets of the so called "instant game” type.
• Lottery tickets of the instant game type are such that when played by a user, the user will know immediately or "instantly" from the use of the ticket whether or not a prize has been won.
• instant game tickets comprise a base or substrate on which is printed information concerning the game. Information may be symbols, words, numbers or any combination of indicia and in one particularly popular form of instant game, the game indicia is covered by means of a scratch off or abradable material. The user simply scratches away this material in order to reveal the indicia either in whole or in part, in accordance with the rules of play, in order to reveal the said game indicia and to assess usually from information printed on the ticket whether or not the ticket is a winner or a loser.
• the main preidentification technique of a ticket of the type involving scratch off material needs to use high intensity lighting in order to in effect view the game indicia through the ticket before tampering with the abradable material. If the concealed indicia can be ascertained by the use of a high intensity light, then winners can be preidentified and extracted. In order to defeat this fraud, manufacturers have had to resort to special measures and these in particular have involved the use of base or substrate materials which are described as "secure". Such materials prevent the passage therethrough of high intensity light and typically comprise laminates involving foil or specially designed base boards which are resistant to light penetration. These boards unfortunately are expensive and generally are environmentally objectionable. There is therefore a need to improve lottery tickets, both from a cost point of view and an environment point of view by adopting the use of more standard and less expensive substrate materials which compared to the secure materials can be described as "non- secure".
• the present invention has been conceived with this objective in mind, and specifically the invention has as an object to permit the use of commercially available and somewhat standard materials (non-secure) such as white carton board as the substrate.
• commercially available and somewhat standard materials non-secure
• white carton board as the substrate.
• the invention can be applied to tickets which comprise a single substrate layer, or tickets where two substrate layers are adopted in the form of the so called “window” tickets wherein one of the substrates has windows which are torn back to expose information concerning the game carried by the other substrate.
• a game ticket comprises a non-secure substrate having game indicia printed thereon which is covered by material abradable in order to reveal the game indicia, and wherein a confusion pattern layer registers with the same indicia and lies under the abradable material so that the confusion pattern is not visible to the naked eye but will lead to confusion results if an attempt is made to identify the game indicia by the shining of intense light through the ticket.
• the confusion pattern preferably is made up of patterns, symbols, numbers, words or other indicia corresponding to the indicia of the game proper, but arranged in a form in order to enhance the confusion effect.
• the confusion pattern may be made up of the same symbols but in mirror image arrangement so that at each location in the pattern if the ticket is illuminated by a high intensity light from the rear, the viewer will see a shape represented by a '0' superimposed on an "X" and will be unable to tell which symbol is in the game indicia and which is in the confusion pattern.
• the above is only one specific example but any arrangement of symbols may be adopted.
• the game indicia is made up of three types of symbols, it may be necessary to put down two confusion pattern layers so that all three types of symbols are laid down at each location.
• the substrate preferably is a layer of plain cardboard or paper of appropriate caliper to give the desired handling and feel characteristics.
• the confusion pattern is printed on the substrate before the game pattern indicia, and there is a separation layer between the confusion pattern and the game indicia such separation layer providing a means of obscuring the confusion pattern to normal version when the abradable material is removed.
• the game indicia is laid down on the substrate prior to the application of the confusion pattern, and then the confusion pattern is covered by the abradable layer.
• the confusion pattern is also abradable, and will be removed by abrasion of the abradable covering layer.
• the tickets may be treated with other layers such as protective varnish, and other security printing in accordance with conventional practice although in the case of the first example, the layer of material which is applied between the confusion pattern and the game indicia should be adapted and created to ensure that it will bond effectively to the substrate. In each case steps should be taken to ensure that the game indicia will effectively bond to the substrate and will not be removed during the abrading process.
• Fig. 1 is an exploded perspective view of the various layers of a lottery ticket according to the first embodiment of the invention
• Fig. 2 shows in a series of steps how the various layers of the Fig. 1 ticket are laid down on the ticket substrate;
• Figs. 3 and 4 are views similar to Figs. 1 and 2, but showing an alternative embodiment of the invention.
• this figure shows in exploded elevation a lottery ticket according to an embodiment of the invention.
• the ticket comprises a base layer or substrate 10, which is of a material of essentially conventional and commercially usable construction, and may typically be a white conventional carton board of appropriate caliper.
• the figure also shows by a series of superposed rectangles the various layers which are laid down, for example by printing, on the substrate 10. Although these layers are indicated by rectangles, it is to be mentioned that in fact each layer may not be rectangular and may be made up for example of a plurality of symbols to form the game indicia. It is convenient however to adopt the rectangular representation for the purposes of illustration. Also, the sequence of illustrations (a) to (g) of Fig.2 shows the top of the ticket after the respective layers have been deposited on the substrate.
• the first layer 12 which is deposited on the substrate sheet 10 is a confusion pattern, and this layer is illustrated at (a) in Fig. 2.
• the pattern is represented as a plurality of symbols which, as will be explained hereinafter correspond to the symbols used for the game indicia, but are arranged in a scrambled pattern different from the pattern of the game indicia.
• the second layer which is applied over the confusion pattern is indicated by reference numeral 14, and comprises an obscuring layer which is an opaque layer of ink applied for example by silk screen printing.
• the opaque layer is of a character which binds tenaciously to the board 10, so as to cover the confusion pattern, and also to provide a receptive surface for the next layer 16 and the following layers.
• the layer 16 is in the form of a pattern, which is conventional in nature, and is known in the art as a benday pattern, the purpose of which is to prevent the cutting up and resticking of the ticket.
• the layer 18 On top of the benday pattern is applied the layer 18 which is the game pattern or game indicia which is illustrated at (d) in Fig. 2. Illustrations (b) and (c) in Fig. 2 represent layers 14 and 16.
• the game pattern is applied by conventional printing techniques, and the layers 20, 22 and 24 which are applied over the game pattern layer 18 are also conventional in nature and comprise a varnish layer to protect the game indicia, an abradable or scratch off layer 22 of conventional scratch off material known in the art as "tessac", and finally a security print layer applied on the tessac layer in order to prevent solvent removal of the tessac.
• the layers 20, 22 and 24 are represented by layers (e), (f) and (g) in Fig. 2.
• the advantage of the embodiment of the invention shown in Fig. 2 is that should an attempt be made to identify the content of the game indicia (e) by shining a high intensity light through the ticket, the game indicia pattern will interfere with the confusion pattern and make it almost impossible for effective detection of the game indicia to be made in this way. The person endeavouring to detect the game indicia is prevented from viewing the confusion pattern which is buried within the layers of the ticket.
• the layer 22 is removed by abrasion, for example using the edge of a coin or a finger nail taking with it the security print layer 24, and the game indicia then becomes visible, the varnish 20 serving as a protective means against abrasion of the game indicia from the ticket.
• a non-special non-secure substrate layer 10 is utilised, this being a particular advantage of the invention, and the layers which are applied and the order in which they are applied are as follows.
• the first layer 30 is the benday layer, and on top of this is applied the game indicia layer 32.
• the varnish layer 34 is applied over the game indicia to protect same from abrasion as disclosed hereinbefore, and on top of the varnish layer is applied a first scratch off layer 36 which comprises the confusion pattern.
• the ticket if viewed at this stage will have the appearance as indicated in Fig. 4 (d) which is a useful figure to examine because it illustrates how the game indicia and confusion pattern interfere, making it well nigh impossible for the game indicia to be identified by shining an intense light through the ticket.
• This layer is indicated by reference 38. The purpose of this layer is to prevent the variable information being read if the ticket has been delaminated or split.
• the said subsequent layers are a conventional scratch off layer 40, which is used to some extent simply because of its colour characteristic and customer familiarity, and the final layer is an overprint layer 42 similar to the layer 24 of the Fig. 1 embodiment.
• the confusion pattern (layer 36) is buried within the layers of the ticket and cannot be seen by the user of the ticket prior to removal of the scratch off layer or layers and if the user intends to shine a light through the ticket to ascertain the nature of the game indicia, he will be thwarted by virtue of the interaction of the confusion pattern and the game pattern, which is conveniently illustrated by Fig. 4 (d) .
• the present invention provides the considerable advantage that standard and relatively inexpensive and commercially available materials can be used for the substrates instead of specialist light obstructing substrates secure such as foil coated board or specially adapted board. As well as saving costs, this feature also has environmental advantages.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Educational Technology (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
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Priority Applications (7)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

Family

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Family Applications (1)

Country Status (15)

Cited By (12)

Families Citing this family (2)

Citations (5)

• 1993
  • 1993-07-03 GB GB939313806A patent/GB9313806D0/en active Pending
• 1994
  • 1994-07-01 WO PCT/GB1994/001433 patent/WO1995001821A1/en active IP Right Grant
  • 1994-07-01 CZ CZ953476A patent/CZ283756B6/cs not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1994-07-01 DK DK94918990T patent/DK0707507T3/da active
  • 1994-07-01 PL PL94312382A patent/PL179191B1/pl not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1994-07-01 AU AU70078/94A patent/AU7007894A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1994-07-01 RU RU96102002A patent/RU2135249C1/ru not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1994-07-01 HU HU9503954A patent/HU215676B/hu not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1994-07-01 EP EP94918990A patent/EP0707507B1/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1994-07-01 ZA ZA944755A patent/ZA944755B/xx unknown
  • 1994-07-04 MX MX9405080A patent/MX9405080A/es unknown
  • 1994-08-31 EE EE9400043A patent/EE03207B1/xx not_active IP Right Cessation
• 1995
  • 1995-12-27 NO NO19955297A patent/NO310277B1/no not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1995-12-28 FI FI956309A patent/FI106294B/fi active
  • 1995-12-29 OA OA60764A patent/OA10253A/en unknown

Patent Citations (5)

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