Scientific Games, whose world headquarters are now located in Alpharetta, Ga., is the largest producer of lottery tickets in the world, offering customers around the globe the most sophisticated ticket design and production technology available.

This past spring Scientific Games expanded its facility by 60,000 square feet, adding more presses, office space, and a human-resources facility. Approximately 80 more jobs will be added to the roster of about 530 employees, the majority of whom come from the northeast Georgia area. The company just announced it has merged with Autotote of New York, the world's largest company in the pari-mutuel wagering business. The combined companies have revenue of approximately $450 million.

Worldwide, Scientific Games employs approximately 1,200 people. Presently, the company provides products and systems to 29 states in the United States and about 50 countries throughout the world, including France, England, the Netherlands, Australia, Greece, and several African countries.

"Our employees range in skills from entry-level people all the way up to mathematicians and Ph.D.'s in chemistry," explains Jim Edwards, senior director of manufacturing for Scientific Games.

"Our computer programmers and print experts come from all over, but the majority of the people we employ are from around here," says Edwards. (Many of the company's employees are Vietnamese and have gone through Lanier Tech's English as a Second Language program.)

In addition to the millions of lottery tickets Scientific Games produces, the company also has been a leader in advancing the technology surrounding the industry. Engineers recently designed an instant scanner that can be used at the retail outlet to swipe a ticket to see if it's a winner. This saves retailers tremendous amounts of time and effort.

"We are interested in offering services to our accounts, as well as providing them with the tickets," says Edwards. "Some of our accounts use our bundling and packaging services, which leaves them to concentrate on other things. It's a form of outsourcing that saves them time."

Scientific Games has another large facility in Leeds, England, where it prints phone cards for most of Europe and lottery tickets for some of the company's smaller clients.

Huge printers and dryers command the space in the plant, running at high speeds twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days- a-week. Amidst the clamor of the giant presses are the whir and whine of rollers moving the webs of paper through a system that appears to take up the space of a football field. Computers track every step, workers with earphones use strobe lights to check the speeding print runs, and the air is filled with the pungent odors of solvents and inks concocted on the premises.

And there's more than meets the eye on the average lottery ticket. The brightly colored graphics are the result of detailed design, as well as several steps of color application, bar coding, and a thin layer of latex to protect vital game information. Numerous security measures have to be taken to ensure accuracy and legitimacy, including a pattern of lines on the ticket backgrounds to deter illegal cut-and-paste attempts.

A typical roll of completed lottery tickets weighs about 800 pounds and has about 240,000 perforated tickets. Scientific Games employs people every step of the way to ensure the printing is accurate, attractive to the customer, and secure.

Even though the high-tech and high-stakes of present day lotteries are unique to our era, it is interesting to note that the lottery, in some form or another, has been around since the beginning of civilization. In ancient cultures, an object, such as a bean or a pebble, was drawn or cast to decide disputes in all phases of life — from property disputes to dowries. Gradually, the concept evolved into games of chance or entertainment. Ancient Romans would use lotteries to decide who would receive lavish gifts at banquets; later, European monarchs used the lottery to fund the construction of specific structures, such as bridges or roads. Napoleon was so impressed by their effectiveness, he used lotteries to try to maintain his empire.

In America the lottery has been both an entertainment and economic resource. As early as the 1700s, colonies used local, state, and national lotteries to divide land or raise money for projects. Scientific Games has an extensive collection of historical documents, including tickets signed by George Washington, in museum cases throughout the facility. The collection shows the history of the lottery as well as evolution of the lottery ticket.

Quick Start continues to supply training to the Alpharetta facility as the company grows. A new job training video has just been released, and Quick Start was responsible for the new employee orientation this summer.