TICKET DISPENSER, VENDING MACHINE AND METHOD

摘要

The dispenser dispenses tickets from a strip in which the individual tickets are delineated by perforation lines. The dispenser includes a separator to tear the tickets apart before issuing them from the machine. The separator preferably is rotary and has a dull helical blade which rotates to contact the ticket strip adjacent a perforation line, and presses against the strip to tear the tickets apart along the perforation line at a point which progresses across the strip along the perforation line. Preferably, a bar code reader is provided for each channel of the dispensing machine. The bar code reader is used in reading information from the tickets to initialize the dispenser control system and in accounting for the sale of tickets, and in the verification of winning tickets. A game is provided in which a jackpot is built up using the detection of each ticket sold. The mechanism is simplified by using a separator member and transport drive structures which span a plurality of different channels or bins of a multi-channel dispenser.