Linking secure and non-secure digital imaging using digital imagers for production of lottery tickets or other documents

A method of digitally imaging a secure portion and a non-secure portion of scratch-off coating protected gaming documents of at least one game, the gaming documents including variable indicia, the gaming documents and the at least one game being associated with at least one overall print run, each print run including (i) a plurality of non-winning gaming documents and (ii) a plurality of winning gaming documents determined by revealing secure variable indicia according to predetermined game programming, and wherein at least the secure portion of digital imaging is hidden under the scratch-off coating, the method comprising:

• (a) generating non-secure digital indicia to be imaged on physical locations of the gaming documents for (i) the non-winning gaming documents and (ii) the winning gaming documents, wherein any arrangement of non-secure digital indicia does not provide any indication of the win or lose status of the gaming documents without removing the scratch-off coating;
• (b) generating secure digital variable indicia to be imaged on physical locations of the gaming documents under the scratch-off coating for (i) the non-winning gaming documents and (ii) the winning gaming documents, wherein the secure digital variable indicia is generated separately from, and is also initially segregated from, the non-secure digital indicia;
• (c) electronically merging the initially segregated non-secure digital indicia and the secure digital variable indicia, the non-secure digital indicia and the secure digital variable indicia no longer being segregated after being electronically merged;
• (d) electronically shuffling the gaming documents with the electronically merged non-secure digital indicia and the secure digital variable indicia using a shuffle seed to randomly or pseudorandomly distribute the winning gaming documents among the non-winning gaming documents;
• and,
• (e) printing each gaming document in the at least one print run;
• wherein the non-winning or winning arrangement of the printed gaming documents cannot be reliably predicted without knowledge of the shuffle seed.