The Big Dig
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
Boston Magazine Staff • Boston Magazine • May 25, 2024
"...this nine-episode GBH News series succeeds in untangling what went wrong, but also what went right — and what lessons can be learned from the ultimately successful and transformative project."
Score: 5
Lauren Hubbard • Aol.com • Dec 15, 2023
"...manages to both humanize the subject and also use it as a lens to examine the present, and future, of big, idealistic infrastructureprojects ..."
Score: 5
Sarah Larson • New Yorker • Sep 29, 2023
"hosted by Ian Coss...excavates the whole fascinating story, with an eye toward understanding current-day cynicism and idealism about infrastructure. ...he brings the story to life with original music and excellent archival audio...Coss deploys memorable details, like a key character, hard at work, waking up one night with his nose in a pizza."
