GB2185215A - Tickets with rub-off surfaces to reveal information - Google Patents

Abstract

A ticket, eg a lottery ticket, comprises a substrate 12 and an opaque covering layer 10 with printed information 24 sandwiched inbetween so as to be concealed from view; an irreversibly removable mask (34), Fig. 3, of the rub-off variety lies over covering layer 10. The covering layer 10 is rendered translucent by suitable treatment either in the manufacturing stage prior to addition of mask (34) or by the user of the ticket after the mask is removed by rubbing. Such an arrangement should frustrate any attempt to determine the information prior to mask removal, and does not require any further calendering or embossing. Preferably, information is printed by laser 22 onto the undersurface of a continuous web of paper whilst the substrate 12 comprises paper or board 26 with a foil 28 preventing X-ray or xerographic processes; a varnish (32), Fig. 2, can be applied over the information before the masking to render the layer 10 transparent; in the alternative technique oil, water or other chemical is applied by a pencil, brush or by licking. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Lottery ticket production This invention relates to the production of tickets, especially but not exclusively tickets for use in lotteries, of a type having information normally concealed by means of an irreversibly removable mask which is of a material such as a latex film, which can be removed by scraping or abrading with the edge of a coin or the like impliment.

Tickets constructed in this fashion are ideally suited for use in lotteries, because the concealed information determines whether or not the ticket is a winning ticket or losing ticket, and the user is not aware of whether or not the ticket is a winner until such times as the mask has been removed. The removal of the mask shows the promoter or seller of the ticket that the ticket has been used and the mask removal prevents the ticket from being re-used and the prize being claimed twice.

Of course tickets constructed in this manner can be used for educational promotional and amusement and other purposes, and therefore the invention is not to be considered as being limited to lottery tickets, although in the following reference will be made only to lottery tickets in the interest of simplicity. Also, as will be appreciated from the following, the size of the ticket is not material to the invention although as will be understood lottery tickets normally are in the form of small hand held items.

It is also to be mentioned that the information which is concealed can be any suitable printing in negative or positive printing form, and may comprise numbers, letters, symbols or the like.

Tickets having a removable mask of the type indicated above, and to which the present invention relates are known in the lottery field as "rub-off" tickets and for convenience, the tickets in the following will be described as rub-off tickets.

The known rub-off tickets which are in wide use at present comprise essentially a substrate layer which typically is a foil coated board on which the information to be concealed is printed. That information is covered with a clear protective varnish, and a mask material is applied on top of the varnish to conceal the information. The varnish is necessary to ensure that the concealed information is not abraded when the mask material is removed, but nevertheless this sometimes does happen when the varnish material application has been less than perfect.

Alsa, as the printing is used for creating the image of the information has a finite thickness, an image of the concealed information tends to stand proud of the surface of the substrate, and by careful examination sometimes the image can be detected without removing the mask. One method of overcoming this difficulty is to pass the ticket through a calendering operation which in effect "embosses" the whole of the ticket surface, thereby concealing the "relief" image.

We have described in one of our co-pending applications (herein the said application) one solution for overcoming these difficulties, and that solution provides a ticket of high security by which the concealed information will be securely concealed, and also wherein, because of the construction of the ticket and the concealment of the information, it is not necessary to use an expensive mask material such as a latex based ink.

In accordance with the invention in the said application in its general aspect, the ticket comprises a substrate and a transparent or translucent flexible film which are laminated together, and the concealed information is contained between the film and substrate having been provided in reverse image on the side of the film which faces the substrate, and the mask material is applied to the outer surface of the film.

The advantage of this construction is that the concealed information is between two layers, and the film layer outer surface presents a smooth surface on which the removable mask material is applied. When the user therefore scrapes the mask material away from the film he cannot abrade the images of the concealed information.

In a particularly suitable adaptation of the invention of the said application, the side of the film which will be the inner side in the final ticket is reverse printed with the concealed information, by laser printing, which will create the image on the film without significantly increasing its thickness. As the image is reverse or inverse printed on the inner side of the film, when it is viewed from the outer side of the film it will appear correctly.

The thus printed film may then be laminated with a suitable substrate to provide the ticket, and the mask material which is applied over the outer side of the film covering the image of the information can be applied to the film before or after creation of the said images.

The substrate and film can be multi-coloured printed for carrying other information relevant to the lottery and/or for decorative or advertising purposes.

The tickets can be manufactured using continuous webs of substrate and film, by printing the individual webs when they are in reel form, and by bringing the webs together to form a reel of tickets which subsequently can be folded and/or cut into sets of tickets for use in a lottery, where that is the use for which the tickets are designed.

Specifically, in connection with tickets for use in a lottery, there is a considerable advantage in printing the tickets using a laser as described above, because a laser can be com puter controlled, which means that with the computer appropriately programmed, the necessary combinations of winning and losing information can be printed on the respective tickets quite easily, and the information can be changed readily for producing different sets of lottery tickets. Also, it is possible to use other than a latex ink or mask, and by concealing the information between the layers of the ticket, at least normal rubbing or abrading of the mask and removal of same cannot result in removal of the images of the concealed information.

The present invention provides rub-off tickets, and a method for the manufacture of said tickets.

In the present invention, which concerns the production of tickets of much the same character as in the said application, instead of a transparent or translucent flexible film being used, an opaque web is used, and the concealed information provided, preferably in the reverse image, at the rear of the web is rendered viewable through the web by a treatment of the web, such a treatment of the web may comprise the application of a varnish thereto, which renders the web at least translucent, in much the same manner as paper is rendered translucent when grease or oil is applied thereto.

A particular advantage of this invention is that the web may be of paper and can be printed with the reverse image by laser printing, with the attendant advantages as set forth in the said application, that the information can be readily changed and varied. Also, as the web is of paper it can be effectively secured to the paper face of the substrate where the substrate is the foil-paper laminate, and the bond between paper and paper can easily be made much better than the bond between paper and film, because when paper is bonded to paper the fibres intermesh and separation of the paper layers, without destroying the ticket, is impossible.

The tickets will have a removable mask over those portions which have been rendered translucent, the mask being removed when the ticket is used.

Where appropriate, all aspects of the invention the subject of the said application are embodied in the present invention, of which an embodiment will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a perspective view showing how a reel of tickets is produced according to the present invention; Figure 2 shows one of the tickets of Fig. 1 after the web carrying the concealed images has been rendered translucent; and Figure 3 shows the ticket of Fig. 2, after the mask has been applied thereto.

Referring to the drawings, a reel of lottery tickets is manufactured by feeding two webs 10 and 12 from respective rolls 14, 16. The web 10 is a web of paper, such as is conventionally fed through a laser printing machine, and the web 10 is printed on the rear side 20 by means of a laser printer indicated by reference numeral 22, so that the images 24 are reverse printed.

The other web 12 is a substrate web comprising, as shown in the ringed portion of Fig.

1, a layer of paper or board material, but in any case fibrous in nature, and a layer of foil, the said layers being represented by the numerals 26 and 28. A foil 28 is provided to prevent "looking through" the finished tickets by means of x-rays or xerographic processes.

The two webs 10, 12 are adhesively secured together following application of adhesive thereto by means of an applicator indicated in Fig. 1 diagrammatically by reference numeral 30. The adhesive may be of any suitable type, and may be pressure and/or heat sensitive adhesive which may be applied prior to the reeling of the materials in reels 14, 16, appropriate release webs being provided between the coils of the reels if desired.

The respective webs are firmly secured together by the application of heat and pressure if required, to ensure that the paper web 10 adheres so securely to the surface of the fibrous layer 26, that it is impossible subsequently to separate the paper layers. An extremely strong bond between paper layers can be achieved when they are laminated, as the fibres of the respective layers tend to intermesh and bond together.

In the resulting reel of lottery tickets, the relevant information reverse printed on the web 10 is concealed between the webs, but in accordance with the principle of the invention, such concealed information is rendered viewable from the top side of web 10 by the application to the top side of the web 10 of a suitable medium such as a varnish 32, as indicated in Fig. 2. The effect of applying a varnish is to make the web 10 become sufficiently transparent so that the concealed images can be viewed therethrough.

In order to complete the ticket, a rub-off 34 material is applied over the images after they have been rendered viewable through the top web 10, and the ticket is used in the manner described in the said application in that the mask material is removed by means of the edge of a coin or the like to expose the area through which the consealed information can be viewed. The varnish which is applied to the web 10 to make the concealed information viewable and the release material 34 are preferably selected so that the release material will abrade readily and smoothly from the varnished surface.

In an alternative arrangement the covering layer 10 is adapted to have a medium, such as oil or water, or a chemical substance, applied thereto after the mask material 34 is removed. Thus, when the mask (34) is removed, the user then applies the medium, water, oil or a chemical by any suitable means such as a pencil, brush drop, licking or the like to the location previousiy covered by the mask, to render the concealed information visible. The arrangement could be that the application of the medium would soil the ticket to such an extent that it would not be capable of being recovered with mask material, adding to the security of the ticket.

Claims (9)

1. A rub-off ticket which has information concealed by irreversibly removable mask material, wherein the ticket comprises a substrate layer and a covering layer bonded to the substrate with the said information sandwiched therebetween, characterised in that the covering layer is opaque but is or can be rendered sufficiently transparent by treating same to enable, when the mask material is removed, the viewing of the concealed information through the covering layer.

2. A ticket according to Claim 1, characterised in that the information is reverse image, laser printed on the side of the covering layer which is bonded to the substrate.

3. A ticket according to Claim 1 or 2, characterised in that there is a varnish (32) applied to the outside of the covering layer (10) at the location of the said information to render same visible, said varnish (32) being located between the covering layer (10) and said mask (34).

4. A ticket according to any of Claims 1 to 3 characterised in that the covering layer (10) is of paper and the surface of the substrate (12) to which it is bonded is paper.

5. A roll of rub-off tickets, each according to any of Claims 1 to 4.

6. A method of making rub-off tickets comprising feeding two webs continuously and bonding same to form a laminated web, one web forming a substrate layer and the other forming a covering layer, characterised in that information for respective tickets is placed between the webs, the covering layer is opaque but is or can be rendered sufficiently transparent at the location of such information so that the information can be viewed through the covering layer, and there is irreversibly removable mask material at said locations and on said covering layer to prevent such viewing of the information until the mask material is removed.

7. The method of Claim 6, characterised in that the said information is reverse printed by a laser printed on the side of the covering layer which is bonded to the substrate layer.

8. The method according to Claim 6, characterised in that the covering layer is of paper and varnish is applied thereto at said locations, after the laminating to render said information visible through the paper of the covering layer, followed by the application of said mask material over said varnish.

9. The method according to any of Claims 6 to 8, characterised in that the covering layer is of paper and the surface of the substrate layer to which the covering layer is bonded, is also of paper.