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 and distributed by PRX.

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Credits:

Host and scriptwriter: Ian Coss

Executive Producer: Devin Maverick Robins

Producers: Isabel Hibbard and Ian Coss

Story Editor: Lacy Roberts

Editorial Advisor: Jen McKim

Fact Checkers: Ryan Alderman and Isabel Hibbard

Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss

Graphic Design: Bill Miller

Project Manager: Meiqian He