Lottery ticket vending machine

A lottery ticket vending machine comprising:

• a housing;
• a ticket drawer column in the housing, the ticket drawer column comprising a plurality of ticket drawers, each of the ticket drawers configured to hold a strip of lottery tickets;
• a ticket burster in the housing, the ticket burster:
• defining a ticket inlet and a ticket outlet,
• movable to a plurality of different ticket receipt positions, each different ticket receipt position associated with and in alignment with a different one of the ticket drawers,
• comprising a ticket cutter, and
• comprising a barcode reader configured to create barcode positional data for a lottery ticket that moves from one of the ticket drawers into the ticket burster based on a barcode of the lottery ticket, wherein the barcode reader is positioned such that the barcode reader can determine the barcode positional data before the ticket cutter cuts perforations connecting the lottery ticket to a next lottery ticket of the strip of lottery tickets, and
• configured to transmit the barcode positional data;
• and
• a controller configured to receive the barcode positional data from the barcode reader, determine if the lottery ticket has a position issue based on the barcode positional data, and cause a corrective action to be taken responsive to determining that the lottery ticket has the position issue.

A lottery ticket vending machine comprising:

• a housing;
• a lottery ticket drawer supported by the housing;
• a ticket burster supported by the housing and comprising a barcode reader;
• and
• a controller supported by the housing, the controller configured to operate with the barcode reader to determine if lottery tickets from the lottery ticket drawer are being fed in to the ticket burster in proper positions to enable the ticket burster to properly separate lottery tickets received from the lottery ticket drawer based on one or more barcodes on the substrates of the lottery tickets, and to cause a corrective action to be taken responsive to determining that the lottery tickets are not in the proper positions.