System and method for composing personalized scratch-off lottery tickets

1. A method for conducting an instant lottery ticket game, comprising:

providing an automated dispenser with a set of scratch-off lottery ticket blanks, each lottery ticket blank comprising a front face and a back face, and a game play area on the front face with play indicia that presents a pre-determined game outcome, the play indicia covered by a scratch-off coating (SOC);

the lottery ticket blanks including a coating layer applied over at least the game play area;

providing an entirety of the front face to a patron as an empty composition area void of lottery ticket indicia;

via an interface configured with the dispenser and in communication with a printer associated with the dispenser, accepting input from a patron of composition indicia that is devoid of lottery ticket indicia for printing on the front face, wherein the patron is enabled to cover the entirety of the front face with the composition indicia;

printing the composition indicia received from or selected by the patron on portions of or the entirety of the front face to generate a finished scratch-off lottery ticket; and

dispensing the finished lottery ticket from the dispenser.

2. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the coating layer is applied entirely over the front face of the lottery ticket blank and provides the empty composition area with a continuous single color appearance for the patron to compose the finished lottery ticket using their composition indicia.

3. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the coating layer is applied only over the game play area and comprises a primer coating suitable for overprinting of the composition indicia thereon, the primer coating visually matching remaining portions of the front face such that the remaining portions and the coating layer define the empty composition area.

4. The method as in claim 1 , further comprising providing means for indicating to a player of the finished lottery ticket that the game play area is present on the front face of the finished lottery ticket.

5. The method as in claim 4 , wherein the means comprises a tactile feel imparted to the game play area that distinguishes the game play area from the remaining portions of the front face.

6. The method as in claim 5 , wherein the tactile feel is provided by the coating layer applied over the SOC.

7. The method as in claim 4 , wherein the means comprises instruction indicia on the back face of the lottery ticket blank that indicates location of the game play area on the front face.

8. The method as in claim 1 , further comprising configuring a controller in the dispenser in communication with the interface and the printer, the controller presenting a plurality of digital indicia templates to the patron via the interface to use a part of the composition indicia on the front face.

9. The method as in claim 8 , further comprising configuring the controller in communication with a central game server, the indicia templates updated or downloaded to the controller by the central game server.

10. The method as in claim 8 , wherein the indicia templates comprise static indicia associated with a particular event or occasion.

11. The method as in claim 8 , wherein the interface and the controller accept an external image presented by the patron as the composition indicia, the external image being a digital image in an external storage device presented by the patron, the interface comprising means for communicating with the external storage device to accept the digital image.

12. The method as in claim 8 , wherein the interface and controller present to the patron options for backgrounds or borders to be printed on the front face as part of the composition indicia.

13. The method as in claim 8 , wherein the interface and controller present to the player an option to purchase the lottery ticket blank without printing the composition indicia on the front face.

14. The method as in claim 1 , further comprising providing the dispenser with a plurality of the sets of scratch-off lottery ticket blanks for different games having a different purchase price and prize structure.