An alarming increase in fake claims made using counterfeited State-printed lotteries in Kerala has reportedly cost registered lottery agents dear. Agents are mandated to convert tickets that have won prizes below ₹5,000 into cash. The bulk of the prizes come under this category. They realise they have been cheated only when they submit the tickets to the Lottery Department for reimbursement.
Digital scanning and printing technologies pose a threat to the security of lottery tickets. It is easy to digitally insert a prize-winning number into a scanned copy of a lottery ticket and take a high-resolution print-out of the tampered document to claim the price from an agent who might not be able to detect the forgery on a casual viewing, an official said. The Lottery Department directly processes only tickets that have won prizes above ₹5,000. Hence, it is yet to encounter startling levels of duplicate claims for bigger prizes.
The Taxes Department has now incorporated two hidden security features into lottery tickets. Agents can now easily recognise authentic ones by using a magnifying glass to read the micro-text feature, and a State issued polaroid screen to scan for the non-repeating spiral ‘Guilloche patterns.’
Future plans
Officials say the government is set to roll out a new generation of numbered lotteries with enhanced security features. Authorities have also proposed a mobile phone application that would help buyers, agents and lottery inspectors verify the authenticity of the tickets by sending their scanned images to an online portal. The use of the app would require buyers to input their mobile phone number, thereby hindering lawbreakers seeking to buy prize-winning lotteries at exaggerated rates to launder black money.
Potent feature
The next generation tickets, which could be authenticated via the app, would incorporate prismatic colour blending, which would arguably render the coupons challenging to copy, scan or manipulate digitally.
They would also have other tamper-proof characters such as fine-line relief, hidden wordings, symbols and photos. The most potent security feature is the ‘void pantograph’. It is a message hidden within the ticket that would appear prominently if the document is photocopied or tampered with digitally, officials said.
