Part 5: The Cherry Sheets
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 the lottery to close the gap.
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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: Jenifer McKim
Fact Checkers: Ryan Alderman and Isabel Hibbard
Scoring and Music Supervision: Ian Coss
Project Manager: Meiqian He
Graphic Design: Bill Miller
Scratch & Win
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
- No. of episodes: 25
- Latest episode: 2025-05-21
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