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US 9,870,673 B2Granted
System and methods of managing and using information in a lottery system
AssigneeOntario Lottery and Gaming Corporation
InventorsRaymond Nanni, Harold Tausch, Leslie Norbo, Ugo Cicchello, Richard Guzzo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Interactions with the lottery system may be stored to a central database or data store. The transactions stored in the lottery system may represent interactions with the lottery system, such as purchasing of tickets and validating tickets. The lottery system may link a current transaction with a previous transaction, allowing a transaction profile of a ticket to be generated. The transaction profile information may be used for various purposes including supporting an investigation.
Claims16
A method for managing transaction information in a lottery system for facilitating a subsequent prize investigation in the lottery system, the method comprising:
- receiving, at a server, a transaction associated with a ticketing event in the lottery system, the transaction comprising a unique identifier (uTID) and transaction information associated with the ticketing event, the transaction information comprising a category type of the ticketing event;
- determining if the received transaction should be linked back to related transactions of previous ticketing events by comparing the category type of the ticketing event associated with the received transaction to one of a plurality of predefined category types of possible ticketing events that may occur in the lottery system that can be associated with previous transactions;
- when it is determined that the received transaction should be linked back to related transactions of previous ticketing events, determining a previous related transaction associated with a unique identifier (uTID) from at least a portion of the transaction information of the received transaction;
- storing, at the server, a link between the uTID of the received transaction and the uTID of the related transaction;
- and
- subsequent to storing the link between the received transaction and related transaction, providing support in a prize investigation in the lottery system comprising:
- receiving a target uTID associated with a ticketing event having a VALIDATION category type for a winning ticket;
- determining one or more previous transactions, each associated with a respective uTID having a stored link to the target uTID;
- determining any subsequent transactions, each associated with a respective uTID having a stored link to any of the respective uTIDs of the determined one or more previous transactions;
- retrieving transaction information associated with each non-duplicate uTIDs from a set of uTIDs comprising the target uTID, the respective uTIDs of the one or more previous transactions linked to the target uTID and the respective uTIDs of any subsequent transactions linked to any of the one or more previous transactions;
- and
- presenting at least a portion of the retrieved transaction information to an investigator.
9 more elements
A lottery information management system for facilitating a subsequent prize investigation, the system comprising:
- at least one processing unit for executing instructions;
- and
- at least one memory unit for storing instructions, the instructions when executed by the at least one processing unit configuring the system to provide a method for managing transaction information in a lottery system, the method comprising:
- receive, at a server, a transaction associated with a ticketing event in the lottery system, the transaction comprising a unique identifier (uTID) and transaction information associated with the ticketing event, the transaction information comprising a category type of the ticketing event;
- determine if the received transaction should be linked back to related transactions of previous ticketing events by comparing the category type of the ticketing event associated with the received transaction to one of a plurality of predefined category types of possible ticketing events that may occur in the lottery system that can be associated with previous transactions;
- when it is determined that the received transaction should be linked back to related transactions of previous ticketing events, determine a previous related transaction associated with a unique identifier (uTID) from at least a portion of the transaction information of the received transaction;
- store, at the server, a link between the uTID of the received transaction and the uTID of the related transaction;
- and
- subsequent to storing the link between the received transaction and related transaction, provide support in a prize investigation in the lottery system comprising:
- receive a target uTID associated with a ticketing event having a VALIDATION category type for a winning ticket;
- determine one or more previous transactions, each associated with a respective uTID having a stored link to the target uTID;
- determine any subsequent transactions, each associated with a respective uTID having a stored link to any of the respective uTIDs of the determined one or more previous transactions;
- retrieve transaction information associated with each non-duplicate uTIDs from a set of uTIDs comprising the target uTID, the respective uTIDs of the one or more previous transactions linked to the target uTID and the respective uTIDs of any subsequent transactions linked to any of the one or more previous transactions;
- and
- present at least a portion of the retrieved transaction information to an investigator.
12 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.