Ticket dispensing device, installation and displays
Lottery ticket dispensing housings are provided with a hinged, transparent rear and top cover, a hinged front wall, and a powered ticket drive and separator module. A relatively tall embodiment of the dispenser with a small footprint is fitted onto the countertop of a check-out counter of a retail store. The top of the housing is flat so as to provide a convenient place for customers to write checks with the tickets being displayed immediately below being highly visible to the customer. A display of relatively flat and short dispensers is provided wherein a rack or housing supports the dispensers one a top of the other in a vertical array. The dispensers are shifted laterally with respect to one another to as to give greater viewability of the contents of each of the dispensers to a customer. The length of each dispenser can be decreased with the increasing elevation of the dispenser so as to provide a vertical alignment of the front sides of the dispensers, the side through which tickets are dispensed. A ticket drive and dispensing module is provided which will fit into any of the housings with a minimum of mounting effort or hardware. This relatively flat and short dispenser can also be mounted vertically on a wall or a stand to provide additional convenient installation operations.
1. A ticket dispenser for containing and dispensing a plurality of tickets in which each ticket is joined to an adjacent ticket by a line of weakness to form a strip of tickets, the ticket dispenser comprising:
a bottom support structure having a front edge and a rear edge;
a front cover pivotally connected proximate to the front edge of the bottom support structure by a front hinge;
a rear cover pivotally connected proximate to the rear edge of the bottom support structure by a rear hinge;
wherein the front and rear covers are pivotal about the front hinge and rear hinge, respectively, toward and away from a closed configuration;
wherein the front and rear covers mate together in the closed configuration to define an enclosed volume in the ticket dispenser to hold the plurality of tickets; and
a powered drive module in the enclosed volume, the powered drive module receiving the tickets for dispensing from the ticket dispenser;
wherein the powered drive module includes a powered separator mechanism for separating one or more of said tickets from one of said strips before dispensing them.
2. A ticket dispenser as in claim 1 in which said front cover includes a portion that is at least partially transparent, and said front cover includes a curved portion.
3. The ticket dispenser of claim 1 wherein one of the front and rear covers includes a portion having a substantially flat upper surface.
4. A ticket dispenser as in claim 1 in which said drive module comprises:
at least one inlet opening for admitting plural parallel ticket strips therein;
at least one outlet opening for issuing tickets from one of said strips;
a drive motor coupled to a drive shaft;
a plurality of input drive rollers rotatably mounted on a common shaft and;
transmission means for selectively coupling said input drive rollers to said drive shaft for selectively feeding tickets in one of said strips through said module and out through said outlet opening.
5. The ticket dispenser of claim 4 wherein said rear cover includes a dispensing slot through which the tickets exit the ticket dispenser.
6. A ticket dispensing installation, comprising a ticket dispenser which has a bottom wall, a pair of side walls, a front cover hinged adjacent to said bottom wall, a rear cover hinged adjacent to said bottom, said bottom wall, said side walls, said front cover and said rear cover defining an enclosed volume to contain a plurality of arrays of tickets in strips with individual tickets being delineated from one another by lines of weakness, a drive module in said ticket dispenser, said drive module being positioned adjacent said front cover in a location to receive strips of tickets from said arrays, said drive module containing drive means for dispensing a predetermined number of tickets from a selected one of said arrays, a portion of said front cover being at least partially transparent to permit viewing of said ticket strips, a check-out counter having a first position at which the customer normally is located and a second position at which a store clerk normally is located, said ticket dispenser being mounted on said checkout counter with the front cover facing said first position at said check-out counter when purchases are being checked-out, and said rear cover facing said second position at said check-out counter, said drive module includes a helical separator member spanning a plurality of different channels of said to separate at least one ticket from any of said ticket strips, said drive module including electronic control means for inputting ticket selection and ticket quantity information into said drive module to cause said dispenser to dispense a selected number of tickets.
7. A dispensing installation as in claim 6 in which said electronic control means is selected from the group consisting of a point-of-sale terminal; a computer; and an on-line lottery terminal.
8. The dispensing installation of claim 6 wherein one of the front and rear covers includes a portion having a substantially flat upper surface.