Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Braille 'scratch and win' tickets

 Lottery tickets for the vision impaired
  (+6, -3)
(+6, -3) 		  [vote for,
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In NZ they are called 'instant kiwi' tickets, I imagine all country's have them.

Problem : they alienate a significant portion of the population - the vision impaired.

Solution: lottery tickets with the symbols in raised from the surface, and the denomination of the win in brail.

The covering which is scratched off needs to be of a thicker variety than your average, ordinary, scratch and will ticket, and the ticket would also need visual wrting and symbols also for the non-vision impaired section of the public.

—hexan, Jun 12 2002

ONCE http://www.once.es/cd/og/ocdog01cose.htm
Spanish lottery organisation [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004]

[link]






       Braille
What's to prevent an employee of a store from "reading" tickets beforehand, and knowing which ones are the winners? There was a fiasco involving baseball cards with raised surfaces.
—thumbwax, Jun 12 2002
   

       I think the idea is that the covering is so thick that the bumps are obscured by it and that the bumps are tough enough that they will not be flattened when scratching off the surface.   

       Fishbone from me for being neither practical nor amusingly impractical.
—st3f, Jun 12 2002
   

       I like the idea, but not the implementation. Can we fix this idea?
—phoenix, Jun 12 2002
   

       [admin] Corrected the spelling of 'Braille' in the idea name.
—mighty_cheese, Jun 12 2002
   

       actually a pretty good way of doing it, GTR, and it's not like the lottery companies are poor, is it?   

       Still far easier, however, just to get a trusted seeing friend to tell you what you got.
—yamahito, Jun 12 2002
   

       How about a scratch-n-sniff area under the rub-off?
—phoenix, Jun 12 2002
   

       or lick-n-taste - scotch whisky for winners; vinegar for losers.
—po, Jun 12 2002
   

       //just to get a trusted seeing friend to tell you what you got//   

       "no, sorry joe, nothing on this one....here, I'll take it and *put* it in the *trash* for you...."   

       ok...I'm having a cynical day....
—runforrestrun, Jun 12 2002
   

       well, that is why I felt *trusted* was necessary..
—yamahito, Jun 12 2002
   

       I like the scratch-n-sniff version, myself...
—nick_n_uit, Jun 12 2002
   

       What does "win!" smell like?
—waugsqueke, Jun 12 2002
   

       chocolate.
—st3f, Jun 12 2002
   

       Money. Losing tickets smell like garbage.
—phoenix, Jun 12 2002
   

       And if you don't smell anything, the guy's just sold you a business card..
—yamahito, Jun 12 2002
   

       I have never really liked spell-check programs, and dictionarys - who needs them.......well me I guess.   

       Yamahito, you trust a friend with a potential million dollars (kumara in NZ)?   

       I had considered scratch and sniff, but did not think was practical (was there not an episode of Red Dwarf with scratch and sniff books)? Lick and win I like, but only for the scotch...
—hexan, Jun 13 2002
   

       And how to market these...?
—bambi, Jun 13 2002
   

       [GeorgeTheRobin] I like the spoken word, aside from the expense. I don't care how much money the lotteries generate -- their beneficiaries clutch, with white knuckled fists, every bit of it.   

       What is needed here is an auditory redemption machine. Scratch the ticket to reveal the familiar visual results, but also a scannable code (UPC, magnetic, rfid). Feed the game card into the machine and have the results spoken, displayed and printed on a receipt. Extra credit for a machine that redeems the prize immediately.   

       Here in the states, some Wells Fargo Bank ATM machines dispense postal stamps. Flip this idea upside down: Standard ATMs read lottery cards and dispense cash.   

       Activation of the cards needs some careful management to keep clerks honest. A UPC code is both cheap and hidden by the opaque scratch-off covering. Magnetic or RFID is more readily adapted to ATM machines, but comes at a higher cost and potential security risks.   

       For all I know, lottery tickets already come with scannable ids and prizes are looked up in a central database. Is this true? I've never played. For statewide lotteries, I imagine that the tickets are merely a touchy-feely component in an otherwise digital infrastructure.   

       If my assumptions turn out to be wrong, I default to my secondary solution: Trustworthy Reading and Speaking Eye Dogs.
—MuffinMan, Jun 13 2002
   

       Florida tickets, both lottery and scratchoff, have bar codes that can be scanned to tell if they're winners or not. <I've often wondered if anyone has run a pack of the things through the scanner on a boring night at work...>
—StarChaser, Jun 13 2002
   

       How about braille scratch-and-sniff lottery cards? Some smell like cherries and others like school-girl's used panties.   

       These are: (1) Tax free (2) Better economics for the operator (3) Similar chance of winning*   

       A whole trading counter-culture could spring up between those that wish they'd won cherries and those that wished they'd won school-girl's used panties.   

       The braille is for blind smokers.
—FloridaManatee, Jan 02 2003
   

       In Spain one of the major lotteries is run by an organisation for the visually impaired, ONCE. Then every vendor may be able to detect the winning tickets. Would make it easier to verify any winners though [link]
—oneoffdave, Jan 02 2003
   

       Why not just have the surface covered in a perfect grid pattern of bumps. Some are a part of the card, others pop off when scratched, and the remaining bits have the information.
—ye_river_xiv, Nov 29 2008
   

       Make every scratchie card a million dollar winner, then all the vision impaired could get blind drunk.
—Lessor Spotted Kiwi, Sep 22 2012
   

       [MuffinMan] The machines here in Maine will scan tickets and verbally announce winners with a Hawking-esque "You're a winner," likely to discourage clerks from telling customers they lost when, in fact, they won.   

       [StarChaser] When an instant ticket is scanned here, the machine phones home to the lottery commission and a record is kept of the date/time, game, and win/lose result. At the end of the month an itemized list is sent to the shop owner to reconcile with their sales history. If there's a mismatch, the shop owner will know something's up.
—Capt Skinny, Sep 22 2012
   

       Furthermore, the Maine State Gaming Control Board requires the POS venue to keep a 'shift record' (at least, they used to), a record of all scratch-off and lottery tickets sold andor redeemed during each shift. The store manager (or shift manager) and the clerk at the register must sign and date the shift record, else the store's cut of every ticket sold and reimbursement for every ticket redeemed during that shift will be witheld. Since I was both the clerk _and_ the night shift manager (11-7 at 7/11!), I signed the shift record twice to verify that I was keeping myself honest.   

       That information may be somewhat dated, however. I've come up in the world since 2001.
—Alterother, Sep 22 2012
   

       Over here, a scratchie of anything worthwhile is verified with a Lotto Rep visiting the ticket outlet to check the security tape recording to authenticate the time of purchase and the claimer.
—Lessor Spotted Kiwi, Sep 23 2012
   

       Maybe instead of raised symbols, the card stock could be thicker and have the symbols embossed. Also, make the scratch off material textured. When the surface is scratched off there should be some left in the embossed areas and work essentially the same as braille.
—rascalraidex, Jan 12 2014
   
      
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