Lottery ticket scraper

A device for scraping an obscuring coating from a game ticket, such as a "scratcher" type lottery ticket. A housing has a slot sized to receive a lottery ticket. Inside the housing a scraper blade is positioned above the slot and a rotatable table below the slot. A ticket pushed into the slot will rotate the table away, then will pull the table back toward the slot when the ticket is pulled outwardly. The scraper blade is spring loaded against the ticket to scrape away the coating as the ticket moves out of the slot without damaging the ticket. The table is adjustable to optimize operation.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to apparatus for scraping away a coating over 
numbers or other symbols on a game ticket of the sort used in many 
lotteries. 
Many lotteries or other organizations sell or distribute card stock tickets 
having numbers or other symbols printed on one side, with the symbols 
coated with an opaque coating. The coating can be removed by scraping with 
a key, coin or the like to reveal the symbols. The symbols may directly 
indicate whether or not a prize has been won, or may be compared to 
publicized winning numbers. 
While these tickets are convenient and protected against fraud, scraping or 
scratching off the coating is inconvenient and messy, often leaving shreds 
and crumbs of the coating material littering the areas, such as 
convenience stores, where the are sold. Completely removing the coating 
takes some time, and care must be exercised in removing only the coating 
and not removing or damaging the symbols. 
A number of devices of varying effectiveness have been developed to aid in 
removing the coating. These range from simple manual scrapers in which a 
scraping edge is manually brought into contact with the coating while the 
ticket is pulled past the edge, as typically described by Rizzo in U.S. 
Pat. No. 4,793,061 to large, complex electrically powered devices, using a 
rotating brush or the like to scrape away the coating as typically 
described by Forrest in U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,549. With the simple device of 
Rizzo, the plastic scraper blade will wear rapidly and great care must be 
used in scraping to remove only the coating and not damage the underlying 
symbols. On the other hand, the Forrest device is large and expensive, 
must be carefully aligned to remove only the coating, and is likely to 
damage the symbols if the ticket should jam in contact with the rotating 
brush. 
Other manual scrapers are described by Fox in U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,004 and 
Diba et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,693. These also require careful 
application of just the correct amount of pressure on a scraping blade 
assembly to fully remove the coating while avoiding damage to the symbols. 
There is no way of adjusting scraping pressure other than the skill of the 
operator. Further, as the scrapper dulls, greater pressure is likely to be 
applied, increasing chances of damaging the symbols, a serious consequence 
if the ticket is a winner. Where a guide is provided, no provision is made 
for adjusting the guide to compensate for wear. Also, it is often 
difficult to start the leading ticket edge past the scraper, resulting in 
buckling of the ticket edge requiring the user to resort to a coin or 
fingernail to remove the coating. 
Other motor driven scrapers are described by Clark in U.S. Pat. No. 
5,253,383 and Sanders et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,842. These also are 
relatively expensive, require the provision of batteries or connection to 
mains and require the ticket to be carefully fed past a rotating cleaning 
brush so as to completely remove the coating to fully remove the coating 
without damaging the symbols. While most scraping devices include some 
means for collecting the coating shreds, often these are not fully 
effective, allowing some of the material to remain with the ticket, 
resulting in littering of the area. 
Thus, there is a continuing need for improved devices for removing coatings 
from lottery or other game tickets which fully remove the coating without 
risk of damaging the symbol printing, which capture and store essentially 
all of the removed coating material, which are compact and inexpensive, 
have a long-lasting scraping edge and which are easily and fully 
adjustable to allow easy access of the ticket into the scraper while 
providing the ideal scraping pressure. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a lottery ticket 
scraper which precisely removes an opaque concealing coating from a ticket 
while avoiding damage to underlying printed symbols. 
Another object is to provide a lottery ticket scraper having scraping blade 
that is highly effective and resistant to dulling. 
A further object is to provide a lottery ticket scraper which will allow 
easy movement of a ticket past a scraper edge in one direction while 
applying scraping pressure during ticket movement past the scraper edge in 
the opposite direction. 
Yet another object is to provide a lottery ticket scraper including an 
adjustable table for allowing easy insertion of a ticket in one direction 
and providing optimum scraping pressure when the ticket is moved in the 
opposite direction. 
Still another object is to provide a lottery ticket scraper in which 
alignment of the scraper edge against the ticket coating is easily and 
conveniently adjustable. 
A still further object is to provide a lottery ticket scraper which 
captures essentially all shreds of scraped coating material in an easily 
removed and emptied container. 
The above noted objects, and others, are attained by a lottery ticket 
scraper which basically comprises a closed housing having an elongated 
slot for entry of a lottery ticket, a pivotable table adjacent to the 
slot, spring means biasing the table towards a closed position adjacent to 
the slot allowing table movement slightly away from the slot by insertion 
of a ticket into the slot and a scraper blade having an edge spring biased 
into contact with the table. 
At least one wall of the housing includes a removable or openable panel to 
allow access to internal components and for removal of accumulated shreds 
of coating material collected in the housing. 
The position of the table relative to that of the scraper blade is 
adjustable to permit precise alignment with the table. While any suitable 
scraper may be used, glass is preferred because I have found that glass 
takes and retains a very sharp edge in this use.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Referring to FIG. 1, there is seen a housing 10 having a removable top wall 
12, a bottom wall 14, two side walls 16, a back wall 18 and a removable 
front wall 20 that caries an enclosure 22 in which the scraping mechanism 
is contained. 
A slot 24 defined by two elongated, closely spaced edges is provided in 
front wall 20 for entry of a ticket 26 (schematically indicated in FIG. 
3). With front wall 20 and top wall 12 in place, housing 10 has no 
openings other than slot 24, so that any scraps or shreds of coating 
material scraped from a ticket are collected in the housing. 
A strip 28 is secured to top wall 12 to aid in moving the top wall into and 
out of grooves 30 in side walls 16. Front wall 20 slides into and out of 
grooves 32 in side walls 16. A strip 34 supports the leading edge of front 
wall 20 at the desired position. Front wall 20 is installed, then top wall 
12 is installed to close housing 10. 
In order to secure housing 10 to a counter or the like, pieces of two-sided 
adhesive tape 36 may be provided at selected positions on bottom wall 14. 
Generally, tape 36 is applied with a cover sheet on the exposed surface. 
When housing 10 is to be secured to a surface, the cover sheets are 
removed and the housing and tape pieces are pressed in place. 
The components making up housing 10 may be formed from any suitable 
material, such as metals like aluminum, wood, plastics (acrylics, 
polycarbonates, etc.) which may be transparent, translucent or opaque as 
desired, or other appropriate materials. Any desired surface coatings, 
indicia or instructions, advertising material, etc. may be applied to 
housing 10 as desired. 
The scraping mechanism components within enclosure 22 are illustrated in 
FIGS. 2-4. Enclosure 22 includes a top wall 38, side walls 40 and a bottom 
wall 42. The enclosure is secured to the inner surface of housing front 
wall 20, which also forms a front wall to enclosure 22 by any suitable 
means, such as adhesive bonding. The back of enclosure 22 is preferably 
left open to provide access to the internal components. 
A scraper blade 44, in this embodiment a glass sheet having flat parallel 
face surfaces and an end surface substantially perpendicular to the face 
surfaces is secured to a mount 46 vertically slidable along the inner 
surface of front wall 20. The scraping edge 48 is formed by the lowermost 
intersection of a face surface and an end surface. This edge is straight, 
uniform and substantially parallel to the edges of slot 24. While any 
suitable blade material may be used, for an optimum combination of 
sharpness, wear resistance, availability and low cost, glass is preferred, 
which may be common window glass. While metal may be used, the sharpness 
and wear resistance is less than that of glass. Synthetic corundum makes 
an excellent, very long wearing, blade edge; however, the cost of material 
and fabrication is quite high. While any suitable angle between blade 44 
and table surface 56 may be used, for best results an angle of about 
50.degree. to 70.degree. should be used. In most cases optimum coating 
removal is achieved with a blade angle of about 60.degree.. 
Compression springs bias mount 46 and blade 44 downwardly. For best 
results, a spring preload in the range of about 4 to 12 lb is preferred, 
with 6 lb generally being optimum. Small deflections in the spring have 
negligible effects on the preload force so the spring offers an 
essentially constant scraping force the card regardless of card thickness 
and clearance variance. In general, excellent results with clearance 
between blade edge 48 and table surface 56 of about 0.002 to 0.010 inch 
with most tickets. With conventional 0.012 in. thick tickets, the optimum 
setting is about 0.004 As detailed in FIG. 4, a stop 57 limits the 
downward position of blade 44. Stop 57 is a small piece of material 
secured to the interior of each sidewall 40 by adhesive bonding or the 
like. Blade holder 46 moves upwardly away from stop 57 during scraping, 
transferring the preload force to the ticket as indicated by arrow 59 and 
lowers into contact with the stop at rest and during ticket insertion. The 
optimum blade location and position are detailed below. 
The lower edge of slot 24 has a horizontal entrance passage surface 58 
which preferably extends a short distance into enclosure 22, along which 
an inserted card 26 can enter. A pivotable table 54 is positioned below 
slot 24, with a table surface 56 preferably substantially coplanar with, 
or slightly below, entrance passage surface 58. Preferably, the edge of 
table surface 56 adjacent to entrance passage 58 has a slight radius, 
typically about 0.2 inch. While the arrangement shown is most effective, 
if desired, entrance passage surface 58 can simply be formed by the 
thickness of wall 20 and the side of table 54 can have a projection 
corresponding to the width of the entrance passage shown. Blade edge 48 is 
parallel to and slightly spaced from table surface 56. Clearance between 
blade edge 48 and table surface 56 is preferably from about 0.002 to 0.010 
inch, with 0.004 inch for 0.12 inch thick tickets being optimum. For 
clarity, the width of silt 24 and the space between edge 48 and table 
surface 56 are slightly exaggerated. 
The lower edge of table member 54 rests on two adjustment screws 60, 
typically conventional setscrews arranged opposite table surface 56. 
Setscrews 60 can be adjusted to assure the entrance passage surface 58 and 
table surface 56 are coplanar and to assure uniform spacing of the table 
surface from blade edge 48. A spring 62 urges table 54 into contact with 
the entrance passage structure. 
"Scratch off" type tickets generally have thickness in the range of from 
about 0.006 to 0.015 inch. For thicker or thinner tickets, the optimum 
trans-ticket dimensions provide in this description can be increased or 
decreased proportionately. 
When a ticket 26 is pushed through slot 24, it would not fit between blade 
edge 48 and table surface 56 because they are closer together than the 
ticket thickness. The card pushes on table surface 56, causing table 54 to 
rotate or pivot away against spring 62, which provides a minimal force, 
preferably in the 0.2 to 1 oz range. With most conventional tickets, 
optimum results are achieved with a spring 62 force of about 0.5 oz. 
For best results, the blade "lead-in" distance, indicated as space 64 in 
FIG. 3, is from about 0.03 to 0.125 inch, with about 0.063 inch generally 
optimum. As seen in FIG. 3, the "lead-in" distance is the distance between 
the tips of arrow 64. The "lead-in" distance is effectively the horizontal 
base of a right triangle having the end of blade 44 at edge 48 as the 
hypotenuse. Preferably the "pinch" angle 66, (the angle between vertical 
and a line drawn through the contact between table 54 and setscrew 60 and 
the blade edge 48) should be in the range of about 8.degree. to 
20.degree., with 12.degree. generally being optimum. With a smaller pinch 
angle, rotation of table 54 may not open the space between blade edge 48 
and table surface 56 sufficiently to allow entry of a ticket 26. 
After ticket 26 is inserted until the coated area has moved past blade edge 
48, the card is withdrawn to scrape away the coating. As withdrawal 
begins, friction between ticket 26 and table surface 56 causes table 54 to 
rotate back to the position shown in FIG. 3, minimally assisted by spring 
62. If the pinch angle is too great, table 54 may not fully rotate back to 
the closed position. Since ticket 26 is thicker than the space between 
blade edge 48 and table surface 56, springs 50 must compress slightly to 
allow withdrawal of the ticket. The resulting spring force is sufficient 
to cause blade edge 48 to strip away a ticket coating without damaging the 
ticket itself. The coil springs 50 as shown are preferred since they 
provide a preload force. The ticket thickness is greater than the 
clearance between blade edge 48 and table surface 56. As table 54 rotates 
forward during ticket withdrawal, blade 46 is forced upward and the 
preload force is transferred from stops 57 to the ticket. The preload 
force is very low for easy withdrawal. Little force is required to remove 
the coating. 
Thus, a ticket 26 can be easily inserted into slot 24 and past blade edge 
48 and table 54, then automatically brought into pressure contact with the 
blade edge during ticket removal to strip off a ticket coating. 
An alternate embodiment of blade 44 is shown in a side elevation detail 
view in FIG. 5. Here blade 44 is mounted vertically in a holder 46, spring 
loaded by spring 50 and spaced from table surface 56 as discussed above. 
Instead of the entire blade being at an angle of about 60.degree. as with 
the earlier blade, the blade is tapered at a 60.degree. or similar angle. 
This blade has the advantage of a more compact construction. 
While certain specific relationships, materials and other parameters have 
been detailed in the above description of preferred embodiments, those can 
be varied, where suitable, with similar results. For example, any suitable 
stop may be provided within the housing to prevent ticket insertion beyond 
a selected point. Other applications, variations and ramifications of the 
present invention will occur to those skilled in the art upon reading the 
present disclosure. While the scraper is preferably housed in a 
stand-alone unit as shown, if desired the housing may be a portion of a 
ticket vbending machine or other unit. Those are intended to be included 
within the scope of this invention as defined in the appended claims.