The dispenser dispenses tickets such as instant-winner lottery tickets from a strip in which the individual tickets are delineated by perforation lines. The dispenser includes a separator to tear the tickets apart before issuing them from the machine. The separator preferably is rotary and has a dull helical blade which rotates to contact the ticket strip adjacent a perforation line, and presses against the strip to tear the tickets apart along the perforation line at a point which progresses across the strip along the perforation line. Preferably, a bar code reader is provided for reading codes on tickets in the dispensing machine. The bar code reader is used in reading information from the tickets to initialize the dispenser control system and in accounting for the sale of tickets, and in the verification of winning tickets being sold. A game is provided in which the concept is that a jackpot is built up using the detection of each ticket sold. The mechanism is simplified by using a separator member and transport drive structures which span a plurality of different channels or bins of a multi-channel dispenser. This provides a very compact, simple, secure and low-cost mechanism which is used both in stand-alone ticket vending machines, and in counter-top attended dispensers.