Patent ID: 8435108
Filing Date: 2013-05-07
Classification: A63F

Abstract:
1. A system for managing a lottery comprising: a set of physical instant win lottery tickets for a lottery game of the lottery configured to be sold to customers for dispensing of lottery funds to said customers, wherein each ticket of the set of physical instant win tickets comprises (i) a substrate having printed thereon, in one or more areas, game data covered by a covering which can be removed to expose said game data to provide a status of said lottery game which is either a winning status with a prize or a losing status; (ii) the substrate having printed thereon, different from and additional to the game status, information defining a number of reward points associated with said ticket, the number of reward points associated with said ticket is different than the number of reward points associated with another ticket of said series of physical instant win lottery tickets; a first computer based apparatus for validation and redemption at a retailer location of tickets of said set of physical instant win tickets having a winning status, the first computer apparatus having a database containing all of said tickets having a winning status to facilitate validation and redemption; wherein said set of physical instant win lottery tickets are configured such that some of said tickets are sold to customers and those sold tickets having a winning status have the validation and redemption thereof carried out by the first computer apparatus using the database while remaining tickets of said tickets having a winning status remain unsold; a second computer based apparatus providing a website associated to the lottery game; wherein each of said tickets has material printed thereon identifying at least the website related to the lottery; wherein said material is arranged so that it is able to be analyzed from an image thereof taken of a respective ticket of said tickets on a camera module of a personal communication device to generate information identifying at least the website associated to the lottery game; wherein said material on the respective ticket and the second computer based apparatus is configured such that, when information identifying at least the website is communicated to the second computer based apparatus, the second computer based apparatus enables communication between the personal communication device and the website in order to communicate data from the website to the personal communication device; wherein the second computer apparatus maintains a database of reward points associated with each ticket of the set of physical instant win lottery tickets; wherein the second computer apparatus is configured to register an account for one or more of said customers, thereby maintaining accounts for registered customers that include an accumulation of a total number of reward points associated with one or more respective tickets; and wherein the second computer apparatus is configured to allow said registered customers to use their respective accumulated reward points, via the website, such that each player's respective accumulated reward points are increased by adding reward points associated with respective tickets provided to the second computer apparatus and are decreased by deducting reward points used by the registered customer.