A method of conducting and playing a lottery game includes providing a chance to win including consecutively drawn player characters selected from a first pool of characters and a trigger player character selected from a second pool of characters, providing a result including consecutively drawn result characters selected from the first pool of characters and a trigger result character selected from the second pool of characters, and comparing the chance to win to the result. When the trigger player character matches the trigger result character, a basic prize is won when all or a plurality of the player characters matches all or a plurality of the result characters, and a second more valuable prize is won when the same conditions apply in addition to when the position of at least one of the player characters matches the position of at least one of the result characters.

A raffle contest system that comprises a database, wherein tickets are sold electronically and information about every ticket is stored in said database. Said container is surveilled at all times by a camera, wherein the video-stream provided by the camera is accessible by users at all times and shows every ticket being printed and dropped into the container immediately after purchase. Purchased tickets comprise identification information to ensure authenticity and integrity of the process. Customers can verify the status of the container, their purchased tickets and interact with other customers at all times during the raffle process. Drawings of the winning tickets are also broadcast through the same video-stream to ensure that the container was not tampered with at any time.

An instant lottery ticket game system includes a set of scratch-off lottery ticket blanks, each lottery ticket blank having a front face and a back face and a game play area on the front face with play indicia that presents a pre-determined game outcome, the play indicia covered by a scratch-off coating (SOC). A coating layer is applied over at least the game play area such that an entirety of the front face presents an empty composition area void of lottery ticket indicia. The set of lottery ticket blanks are housed within an automated dispenser. An interface is configured with the dispenser and is in communication with a printer associated with the dispenser and accepts input of composition indicia from a patron for printing on portions of or the entirety of the front face to generate a finished scratch-off lottery ticket prior to dispensing the finished lottery ticket.

A direct thermal printable construct, such as a ticket, game piece, coupon, collection piece, label, security card, or voucher includes a thermally printable medium and a metallized layer bonded directly or indirectly to the thermally printable medium. A thermosensitive imaging layer of the thermally printable medium is printable by exposing the metallized layer to localized heat of a thermal printer for inducing local changes in the color of the thermosensitive imaging layer that are obscured from view through both the metallized layer and a base substrate of the thermally printable medium. One or more areas of the metallized layer are arranged to be removable by a scratching action using a fingernail or coin for revealing the underlying local changes in the color of the thermosensitive imaging layer.

A lottery ticket dispenser array includes a frame and a plurality of separate bins contained within the frame. Each bin includes a housing having a front side that faces a purchaser in operational use of the dispenser array, an opposite back side, and an internal space for receipt of a supply of interconnected lottery tickets, wherein each lottery tickets contains a code printed thereon. Each bin has an electronic drive mechanism that dispenses the lottery tickets therefrom. The bins are separately removable and insertable into the array. A printer module is provided in the array and has a size and configuration so as to be insertable into the array in place of at least one of the bins.

Lottery tickets and lottery gaming systems and methods providing such lottery tickets, wherein the lottery tickets each have a connected symbol set path feature including a plurality of connected symbol sets along a bonus award path, a plurality of player symbols, and potential awards that can be won based on the symbol sets and the connected symbol sets along the bonus award path and the player symbols.

A printed security-enhanced document, printing method, and system for ensuring that any printing defects present in the variable indicia also occur in the background on the document protected. By ensuring that random printing defects in the variable indicia also appear in the same document's background, detection of the printing defects becomes more readily apparent.

A redundantly printed security-enhanced document, printing method, and system for better ensuring that the meaning of the information imparted by variable indicia printed by redundant printing indicia on a document protected by a removable Scratch-Off Coating (SOC). By printing the variable indicia with multiple colors, redundancy and integrity of the intended indicia is achieved relative to the perception of human eye photoreceptor cones. The redundantly printed document, methods, and systems enhance the overall appearance of the redundantly printed document, and reduce possible consequences resulting from misprinted variable indicia.

A full-color protected document, and methods and systems for making same, secured by a removable Scratch-Off Coating, where the protection against document alteration and/or copy type attacks is provided by digitally imaging Benday patterns and/or digital imaged background patterns around the variable indicia. By printing Benday patterns and/or imaged background using the same process color imagers, usability and integrity of the protected document are achieved relative to the consumer's perspective while at the same time providing a more secure, less expensive, and more aesthetically pleasing document design.

A security-enhanced document includes a substrate and variable indicia comprising ink having a signal. The variable indicia is of a specific type and is applied to the substrate using a specific application technique. At least one other printed portion, which is a back of the document, has background ink noise, and the type of ink of the back of the document is of the same type of ink applied to the substrate using the same application technique as the ink of the variable indicia. The document also includes a scratch-off-coating applied over the variable indicia. The document has a signal-to-noise ratio of the ink of the variable indicia relative to the background ink noise of the back of the document that is not appreciable, thereby making the variable indicia unreadable with reference to the back of the document when the scratch-off-coating remains intact.