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 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 method, system and device for inspection of a lottery ticket uses a device to scan lottery tickets to detect information concerning the amount of scratch-off material, such as a coating or a covering, that has been removed from a ticket, and/or the type, amount, or content of underlying indicia that have been revealed by the scratches. The system may use the information to calculate and set or determine a tolerance level for scratching below which a ticket will not be invalidated, based on parameters that may include the amount of surface area that has been scratched, and/or the type, amount, or content of underlying indicia that has been revealed. The system enables a user to input information to reset the threshold volume to a user-selected volume above which invalidation is triggered.

A security-enhanced document with a removable SOC is provided that is compatible with process color digital imaging, method and system for producing the document enhances production, and expands the aesthetics of the documents.

A method is provided of digitally imaging a secure portion and a non-secure portion of scratch-off-coating protected documents of at least one game using middleware. The method includes: (a) generating the secure variable indicia in non-vector raster format; (b) generating vector graphics to be imaged on physical document locations; (c) assigning the secure variable indicia in a non-vector raster format to documents in and shuffling the documents throughout a print run; and (d) linking via middleware the secure variable indicia in the non-vector raster format to associated vector graphics variable indicia to be digitally imaged on the documents and to generate vector graphics-formatted data for each document in the print run. The secure variable indicia assignment and shuffling are executed by non-vector raster game generation software output that is reinterpreted by the middleware to produce related vector graphic output for the secure variable indicia.

A method and system encourage continued play of scratch-off lottery tickets remaining in a game after award of the seeded top prizes in the game. A total set of scratch-off lottery tickets for the game are subject to a single multi-tier prize structure that includes a top tier prize and a plurality of lower tier prize levels. Subsets of the total set of tickets each have a predetermined winning outcome at one of the lower tier prize levels. A first one of the subsets is divided into qualifying tickets and non-qualifying tickets, the qualifying tickets eligible for play in an additional game having a game prize at least equal to the top tier prize. The qualifying and/or non-qualifying tickets are provided with a printed mark that distinguishes the qualifying tickets from the non-qualifying tickets within the first subset. At redemption, the qualifying tickets are identified and entered into the additional game.

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.

Security-enhanced documents and methods of forming security-enhanced documents having indicia under a Scratch-Off Coating (SOC), and more particularly including digitally imaging video frames onto the display area and/or back of the documents. In certain embodiments, portions of digitally imaged video frames are also utilized as game play variable indicia.

An instant lottery scratch ticket and method of playing a lottery instant scratch ticket game comprises a plurality of physical tickets, wherein each ticket provides a removable sticker that may provide wins or enhanced wins.

A method of playing a lottery instant scratch ticket game comprises a plurality of scratch tickets, wherein each ticket comprises four game grids. Each ticket provides a TicTacToe-like gameplay and wherein “O” symbols provide a payout differing from “X” symbols in each separate game grid. A mini jackpot and a maxi jackpot may be provided. Alternate embodiments are discussed.