Fragrance enhanced scratch-off layer for game cards

A scratch-off game piece which contains a fragrance which is released during the game play action. The game piece is constructed by application of layers of fragrance containing material and scratch-off material over a support layer of printed sheet material such that when the scratch-off material is removed by the player, the fragrance containing capsules are ruptured and fragrance is released.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to articles containing microencapsulated materials 
and methods of preparing such articles. In particular, the invention 
relates to lottery tickets or the like having microencapsulated materials 
applied to the surface of the support layer of printed sheet material 
along with a coating of scratch-off material. When the scratch-off 
material is removed by a player, the capsules rupture, releasing the 
fragrance contained therein. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Encapsulated materials have been used for many years in a wide variety of 
commercial applications. Other uses of encapsulated materials included 
paper coated with capsules bearing coloring material therein which could 
be used as a recording medium. In addition to release of physically 
absorbable materials such as ink in order to form a visible image, other 
types of active ingredients such as odor releasing materials, and the like 
have been provided in this manner. 
Items of this nature can increase consumer involvement in promoting 
products through advertisement. One of the most important things to do 
when doing business with consumers is to get their attention and interest 
in your products. With advertising promotions, the advertisement must hold 
the consumer's attention long enough for the consumer to be aware of the 
product being promoted. Because of this need to make the consumers stop 
and read the advertisement, companies place attention letters in 
advertisements to make people stop at the ad and notice the product 
promotion. One way of doing this is to place an advertisement which needs 
the consumer's participation to complete. This is known as consumer 
involvement. 
One such type of consumer involvement item is the scratch-off game. This 
game can be anything which requires the consumer to stop and scratch off a 
covering from some part of the ad to reveal the prize or secret message. 
One type of scratch-off game that is very popular is the instant lottery 
ticket. This type of game benefits from the interest generated by consumer 
involvement as described above. Anything which can increase the consumer 
interest will increase sales of game tickets. Consumer interest can be 
increased by incorporating into scratch-off games a fragrance into the 
game piece. This can be done easily by using microencapsulated fragrances. 
These fragrances would be such that the scent would evoke a consumer 
response in accordance with the item being promoted or the content of the 
game. For example, the scent of Christmas trees would be incorporated into 
an instant lottery ticket which has a Christmas holiday theme. Another 
example would a cents off coupon by a coffee brand where the consumer had 
to scratch-off the area to determine the value of the coupon and this 
would release a coffee scent. The variations of game and scent 
combinations could be unlimited. 
FEATURES AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
One feature of the disclosed invention is a game piece having one or more 
layers of coatings thereon containing microscopic rupturable capsules 
containing fragrance covering a printed support substrate and a coating 
layer also covering the printed material to hide the printed matter until 
the coating layers have been scratched off and the microcapsules are 
ruptured. 
Another feature of the disclosed invention is to apply a fragrance 
containing layer over a game piece and a scratch-off layer to the game 
piece without rupturing the fragrance containing layer. 
Yet another feature of the disclosed invention is to provide a layer having 
both scratch-off material and fragrance containing microscopic rupturable 
capsules covering a portion of a support substrate of printed sheet 
material. 
Another feature of the disclosed invention is to provide a method for 
applying coatings of fragrance containing microcapsules over a support 
substrate of printed sheet material and a coating layer of scratch-off 
material over the fragrance containing laYer without rupturing the 
microscopic rupturable capsules prior to use by the consumer. 
In summary, therefore, this invention is directed to articles such as game 
pieces and coupons which stimulate both the olfactory and visual senses, 
and generate increased consumer interest in lottery tickets or coupons 
using scratch-off material to hide printed matter on a printed sheet and 
to emit a fragrance upon removal of the scratch-off layer. The article 
includes mixtures or layers of scratch-off material and microencapsulated 
fragrances adhered to a layer of sheet material. 
These and other features and advantages of the invention will be readily 
apparent in view of the following description and drawings of the above 
described invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
FIG. 1 shows a lottery ticket T having a typical lotto ticket format on the 
face F illustrating a scene corresponding to the type of scratch-off game 
or ad campaign used to increase sales of the tickets T. In the lottery 
ticket T there is always included a scratch-off area A covering the 
concealed prize or amount. FIG. 2 shows a typical coupon having 
scratch-off areas A covered by the scratch-off material, whereupon 
removing the scratch-off material reveals the hidden prize which may 
either be a free item or a discount such as cents off of your next 
purchase. 
In each of the game card formats of FIGS. 1 and 2, fragrance has been added 
to scratch-off layer 10, thus adding a new dimension to the game. A 
fragrance-containing layer 20 is shown in FIGS. 1 and 4 located beneath 
the scratch-off layer 10. 
Referring now to FIG. 3, the preferred embodiment of the invention is shown 
as having a support substrate S of paper, plastic or the like, coated by a 
layer of scratch-off material 10 which is in turn coated by a layer of 
fragrance-containing microcapsules 20. 
The scratch-off material is a soft polymeric elastomer dissolved in 
solvent. To this is added a metallic particle for color and opacity with 
aluminum, brass or bronze being common. Also, inorganic fillers are used 
and these can include titanium dioxide, calcium carbonate or carbon. 
Various mixtures of elastomers, metals, and fillers can generate products 
with various properties such as ease of removal, opacity, and color. 
Systems that are aqueous rather than organic solvent based are 
commercially rare, but can be manufactured. The scratch-off material can 
be commercially purchased and its specific formulation is secret to those 
who manufacture these products. 
Common methods of application of the scratch-off material are flexographic, 
gravure or silk screen printing techniques, but other techniques such as 
extrusion can be used. After the scratch-off is dried, the fragrance 
capsule slurry can be applied by some of the same printing or extrusion 
methods Over the scratch-off. 
Capsules in the range of 5 to 150 microns are practical for use in the 
microcapsule layer. The capsules are preferably in the 10 to 70 micron 
range, with the 10 to 40 micron range being optimum. Microcapsules can be 
produced by any of the standard methods listed in the current literature. 
When the scratch-off is removed by scratching to reveal the game area, the 
microcapsules are broken and the fragrance is released and can be 
olfactorily detected by the consumer. 
Preferably, game cards have the scratch-off material as the last layer over 
the game play area. Lottery tickets or other complex, high security or 
decorative games have additional printing on top of the scratch-off 
material. It is most advantageous to put the microcapsules as the top most 
layer of this construction so that the additional printing does not damage 
the capsules. 
When as in the preferred embodiment, the fragrance is applied over the 
scratch-off material, the formulation for the fragrance coating would 
include about 10-30 percent capsules, 1-20 percent binder, 0-10 percent 
thickener-reology agent and 50-88 percent water. 
A different construction as shown in FIG. 4 using the same application 
techniques would be to put the fragrance capsules 20 down first and dry 
this layer before applying the scratch-off material 10. In the multi-layer 
lottery ticket, the capsules can be placed beneath the scratch-off, or 
above the scratch-off, but below any of the subsequent layers. If multiple 
layers of scratch-off are used, the capsules can be placed between any 
layer. The problem with this arrangement of layers is that any layer 
placed over the capsules must be done with extreme care so that the 
capsules are not broken during manufacturing allowing release of the 
fragrance prematurely. 
The formulation for the fragrance containing layer when applied prior to 
application of the scratch-off layer would include 10-30 percent capsules, 
1-20 percent binder, 0-10 percent thickener-reology agent and 50-88 
percent water. 
FIG. 5 illustrates another construction which includes blending of the 
microcapsules directly into the scratch-off material and applying the 
microcapsules and scratch-off materials as a blend B over the support 
layer of printed sheet material S simultaneously. There are three methods 
by which this product could be prepared. 
First, the microcapsules are normally prepared as a water suspension. The 
technique is known to evaporate the water and produce residual capsules 
which are a dry free flowing powder. This dry powder can then be blended 
into the solvent based scratch-off material and would act as an additional 
filler. The blended materials could then be applied to the sheet material 
by any standard techniques for applying scratch-off materials, such as 
flexographic, gravure, or silk screen printing or extrusion. The problem 
with this method is that losses of microcapsules are high and 
microcapsules are fairly expensive to obtain. 
The second method is to incorporate the microcapsule slurry directly into 
the scratch-off. Since the microcapsule slurry is normally water based, it 
would be necessary to use a water based scratch-off material. Although not 
as common as solvent based systems, aqueous scratch-offs can be made. 
Since both the scratch-off and the microcapsules are now aqueous, they can 
be blended with little problem. The scratch-off could be made with less 
water than normal or some of the water could be removed from the fragrance 
capsule slurry by filtration, if necessary, to prevent over-dilution of 
the mixture. Once blended, the mixture can be applied by the methods 
described above. 
A third technique for incorporating microcapsules into the organic solvent 
based scratch-off material is to convert the aqueous microcapsule solution 
to an organic solvent base solution. Taking the aqueous microcapsule 
slurry and adding thereto a dehydrating agent, the slurry solution can be 
transformed into an organically soluable solution. Selecting an 
appropriate dehydrating agent is of paramount importance. Some alcohols 
will penetrate without destroying the microcapsule and leach out the 
fragrance. Other dehydrating agents will destroy the capsule wall. 
Hexylene glycol has been found to dewater capsules in aqueous solutions 
without detrimentally affecting the yield of capsules from the solution. 
By repeatedly adding hexylene glycol and decanting, the aqueous 
microcapsule solution can be effectively dehydrated. Adding an additional 
non-ionic solvent such as naptha or toluene to the hexylene glycol and 
microcapsule solution creates a solution which is more mixable with the 
scratch-off material which is usually naptha-solvent based. Before mixing 
the dehydrated microcapsule solution with the organic solVent based 
scratch-off mixture, the miorocapsule solution is filtered to form a 
paste-like mixture which will prevent over-dilution of the scratch-off 
solution. 
Another method for producing fragranced game pieces is to incorporate free 
oil into the scratch-off material or some other part of the game piece. 
This method does not use microcapsules. It would not have the stability 
and shelf life of a microcapsule product. The game piece would have an 
odor which would release naturally and diminish with time and could be 
used for articles which have a short life span from manufacturing to 
distribution to the consumer. 
The formulation, for dry capsules or paste mixture in solvent scratch-offs 
is 5-40 percent capsules and 60-95 percent scratch-off (solvent based). 
The formulation for capsule slurry in aqueous scratch-off is for a 20 
percent capsule slurry is a 10-50 percent concentration and a 50-90 
percent scratch-off concentration (aqueous). For a free oil in solvent 
scratch-off, the formulation would include 1-20 percent fragrance oil, 
0-10 percent emulsifier and 70-99 percent scratch-off (solvent). 
While this invention has been described as having a preferred embodiment, 
it is understood that it is capable of further modification, uses and/or 
adaptations of the invention which follow in general the principle of the 
invention and including such departures from the present disclosure as 
come within known or customary practice in the art to which the invention 
pertains, and as may be applied to the central features herein before set 
forth, and fall within the scope of the invention and the limits of the 
appended claims.