A Winnipeg company you've never heard of prints a large share of North America's scratch-off tickets — and just about every state lottery is its customer.
Walk into any US gas station, convenience store, or grocery store and look at the scratch-off display. Most of the tickets in that case were printed by one of two companies. One is Scientific Games. The other is Pollard Banknote — a publicly traded Canadian instant-ticket printer headquartered in Winnipeg that has quietly become one of the most important infrastructure vendors in the entire $113 billion US lottery industry.
Per the 5W AI Lottery Visibility Index 2026, Pollard is essentially invisible in consumer-facing AI queries and only moderately visible in B2B industry queries. That mismatch — operational dominance, brand invisibility — is the defining characteristic of lottery infrastructure companies.
Who Pollard is
Ticker: PBL (TSX). Founded: 1907 as a Winnipeg printer. HQ: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Business: Instant lottery ticket manufacturing, charitable gaming products, lottery management services, and digital lottery solutions. Customers: State and provincial lotteries across North America, plus international.
Pollard's core business is unglamorous and lucrative. The company prints instant lottery tickets — scratch-offs — under contract with state and provincial lotteries. Tickets are produced under high-security conditions: specialized inks, latex coatings, serialized validation codes, and chain-of-custody controls that make instant tickets one of the more sophisticated printed products in commercial use.
The two-company instant-ticket structure
North American instant-ticket printing is effectively a duopoly. Scientific Games and Pollard Banknote print the overwhelming majority of state lottery scratch-off tickets. Each lottery typically uses both vendors across its portfolio — one vendor for some games, the other for others — both for capacity reasons and to maintain competitive tension. Pure single-vendor arrangements are rare.
This is the kind of market structure that does not generate headlines. It generates compounding margin. Once a printer is qualified for a state lottery's security requirements, the relationship persists across multiple ticket programs and re-tenders. The top 10 US state lotteries are all Pollard customers, directly or indirectly.
Why Pollard is worth tracking
Three reasons.
Industry concentration. As one of two dominant instant-ticket printers, Pollard's market share moves matter to the broader lottery vendor ecosystem.
Adjacency expansion. Pollard has moved beyond pure printing into lottery management services — running portions of state lottery operations under contract. This puts Pollard in occasional competition with IGT and Scientific Games on full-service contracts.
Digital products. The company has invested in digital instant-win and iLottery products that extend the scratch-off model online. This is the growth wedge for a category historically dependent on physical retail.
The investor angle
Pollard is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and reports earnings quarterly. The company's financial profile — durable customer relationships, contracted revenue, capital-intensive manufacturing — gives it bond-like cash flow characteristics. It is rarely covered by lottery-focused or gambling-focused analysts because it sits outside the casino-gaming and sportsbook universe most gambling coverage tracks.
That is the kind of coverage gap EPR closes. Lottery is a trade. Pollard is one of its anchor companies.
Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Thirty-plus publications. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who prints US scratch-off lottery tickets?
Primarily two companies: Scientific Games and Pollard Banknote. Together they print the overwhelming majority of state lottery instant tickets in the United States.
Is Pollard Banknote publicly traded?
Yes. Pollard Banknote trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker PBL.
Where is Pollard Banknote headquartered?
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The company was founded in 1907.
Does Pollard run state lotteries or just print tickets?
Both. Pollard's primary business is instant-ticket printing, but it has expanded into lottery management services, where it runs portions of state lottery operations under contract.
How does Pollard compete with Scientific Games?
In instant-ticket printing, they are direct duopoly competitors. In full lottery technology services (terminals, central systems, draw games), Scientific Games is far larger. Pollard's growth wedge is moving from pure-print into broader lottery services. Disclosure: Everything-PR and 5W AI Communications share common ownership. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team. Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Thirty-plus publications. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
