Hand-marked lottery selection slip scanning system and method

摘要

A system and method for capturing hand-marked cells from a lottery selection slip. The lottery slip includes a conventional play region of cells (labelled sequentially from 1 to 49, for example) for receiving indicia to be captured, after receiving indicia said play region of cells includes a plurality of occupied cells defined by marked cells and a plurality of non-occupied cells defined by unmarked cells. The lottery slip also includes row-identifier bar codes located at opposite boundaries of the play region. The bar codes are electro-optically scannable and readable and are arranged in a plurality of ordered rows tiered along the transverse direction over the transverse distance of the play region. A scanner is used to generate scan lines that extend over the play region of cells occupied by the indicia and over each bar code and for decoding the row identifer data for each scan line as each line transverses the boundaries of the play region of cells, the occupied cells having different light reflectivity than the non-occupied cells. A decoder captures the identity and the location of the occupied cells and the non-occupied cells and stores the digitized signal. A ticket receipt is then issued representative of the numbers selected by the player. By using a bar code scanner to read both the row identifier codes and the actual hand-marked play region the need for precise positioning within traditional terminals is obviated.