Scratch & Win
5.0/5
Critic Rating
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 d...
Critic Reviews
Score: 5
Chloe Walker • PodcastReview.org • Mar 17, 2025
"Though a podcast about the history of the Massachusetts State Lottery may seem quite specific, the remit of Scratch & Win is surprisingly vast...The podcast is at its most interesting when it’s dealing with the issues head-on, as it does in the opening and closing episodes, rather than sideways, as it does in the rest of them. As well-researched and warmly presented as it is, that tendency to lose the forest for the trees prevents Scratch & Win from maintaining the cohesiveness needed to become a truly compulsive listen."
Score: 5
Lauren Passell • Podcast The Newsletter • Feb 3, 2025
"The answer is fascinating, Ian takes us on side trails from Catholicism to Vaudeville. And it all starts to make sense...While Ian is presenting us with staggering facts about how much money we spend on scratch tickets or how quickly America took the leap to instant gambling, he’s also bringing in so much emotional investigating."
