Publishing Details
Contact & Outreach
About This Podcast
Never in American history has it been so easy to gamble, legally at least. We’ve got casinos, sports betting, online poker, keno — but it was all made possible by state lotteries, which brought gambling out of the shadows and into the public square — into the government itself.
“Scratch & Win” follows the unlikely rise of America’s most successful lottery. We begin in 1970s Boston, with state bureaucrats going toe to toe with mafia bookmakers, and each other, as they struggle to launch the state's greatest innovation: the scratch ticket. But the story reaches all the way to the present moment. How do we feel about the gambling industry that lotteries helped summon into being? And should the state be in this business at all?
“Scratch & Win” is made by the Peabody Award-winning team behind “The Big Dig,” produced by GBH News.
Podcasting 2.0 Features
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
S2E8 Scratch & Win | 8. The Other Massachusetts Miracle
Part 8: Most lottery games follow a predictable life cycle: a burst of interest followed by a long decline. But something else happened with the scratch ticket, and it changed how every lottery in…
S2E7 Scratch & Win | 7. The Dirtiest Race in the Commonwealth
Part 7: By 1986 Treasurer Bob Crane has turned the lottery into the most successful operation of its kind, but now he’s in the fight of his political life with a challenger who says he’s the real…
S2E6 Scratch & Win | 6. The Game Dreams Are Made Of
Part 6: The Mass Lottery stumbles when it attempts to launch the nation’s first ‘lotto’ game. But that failure soon becomes an opportunity – and a national craze – when Treasurer Bob Crane brings in…
S2E5 Scratch & Win | 5. The Cherry Sheets
Part 5: The lottery was never just about stopping crime; it was about bringing in money. In 1980, an anti-tax ballot measure throws Massachusetts state finances into chaos, putting new pressure on…
S2E4 Scratch & Win | 4. The Last Mafia Boss of Boston
Part 4: The state lottery can’t run the mob out of the numbers business on their own. Luckily they’ve got help from the FBI, who are just launching a daring operation of their own – to bug the…
S2E3 Scratch & Win | 3. Have You Played Your Number?
Part 3: Before the Massachusetts Lottery can claim to be number one, they have to take out the competition. So in 1976 the state lottery challenges organized crime head on by copying their most…
S2E2 Scratch & Win | 2. The Lottery Czar
Part 2: When states got into the gambling business, they wanted the same thing organized crime wanted: money and power. The question now is who in government will get to wield that awesome…
S2E1 Scratch & Win | 1. The Instant Ticket
Part 1: It’s 1974, illegal bookies are everywhere and the brand new state lottery is struggling to compete. But a simple piece of paper is about to change the game forever: the nation’s first scratch…
S2 Introducing Season Two: Scratch & Win
Legal gambling is everywhere. But how did it get like this? And why can't we fully embrace it? "Scratch & Win" looks for answers in the unlikely story of America's most successful lottery, and…
Frequently Asked Questions
Scratch & Win has published 9 episodes since January 2025, covering topics in History.
Scratch & Win is currently dormant with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 50m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Scratch & Win, including email and social media links.
Similar Podcasts
The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Ascension
1,715 episodes
Sword and Scale
Sword and Scale
105 episodes
Revisionist History
Pushkin Industries
202 episodes
Lore
Aaron Mahnke
500 episodes
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
656 episodes
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
489 episodes