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. And it all began in Massachusetts.
“Scratch & Win,” the eight-part limited series podcast, 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? The podcast is made by the Peabody Award-winning team behind “The Big Dig” podcast, produced by GBH News and distributed by PRX. The lead producer and host Ian Coss – who previously served as a producer for PRX Productions, PRX’s team of audio creatives – has joined GBH’s podcast unit in a newly-created role as podcast producer and host. As GBH’s digital strategy continues to evolve, Coss will develop and produce original narrative podcast series for GBH News and provide creative guidance for other GBH podcasts. We spoke with Coss about how the podcast was made.
Describe this podcast in one word.
IC: Vaudeville
How did you find this incredible story? And why is now the right time to tell it?
IC: Two years ago, when I was doing interviews for “The Big Dig,” one of the people I sat down with was Steve Crosby. I was interested in Steve because he had worked in the administration of Governor Jane Swift, but I also knew he had worn many hats in government – including chair of the state’s gaming commission. After we wrapped up the interview, he mentioned off-hand that if I wanted a good story about Massachusetts politics, I should look at the world of gambling.
I knew the state had a hand in casinos and the lottery, but I don’t think I had ever stopped to think about just how enmeshed these worlds are – especially here in Massachusetts. As I started to read up on the topic, I was surprised to learn that we here in the Bay State spend more per person on lottery tickets than residents of any other state, by a lot. When it comes to lotteries, there is Massachusetts and then there is everybody else.
I couldn’t get that fact out of my head. Why us? Why here? And as I looked into those questions, I realized that the story of state lotteries can help us understand how it is that legal gambling has become so ubiquitous in our society today – from sports betting to casinos to keno. That’s when the relevance of this story really clicked for me.
What were some of the challenges in making the podcast? And what surprised you the most as you dug deeper?
IC: The biggest challenge is that gambling remains a controversial subject, and a lot of people don’t want to talk about it. The state lottery itself declined to make any staff available for interviews or help me connect with former staff. The sitting State Treasurer (who oversees the lottery) also declined my interview request, and that was just the beginning. So, we had to work hard to find folks who could give us a real inside look at the lottery’s operations, and I’m grateful to Dawn Hayes, Sheila Dubrawski, David O’Reilly, Jack Connors, and many others who did share their stories. They all appreciate the complexity of gambling and also appreciate the value of talking about it.
The music is awesome. Tell us about it.
IC: Well, for this one we were lucky that one of our main characters, State Treasurer Bob Crane, loved to sing, and that GBH recorded him live in concert back in the 1970s. The song that ends each episode, “You Made Me Love You,” is from that archival recording. I knew that song vaguely from the Patsy Cline version and was so excited when I realized the song actually dates back to 1913, meaning it’s in the public domain and we were free to use it. Then, as I listened closer to the lyrics, the whole story was right there in the song: ”You made me want you, and all the time you knew it…”
A lot of the other music is loosely inspired by that vaudeville feel from Crane’s group, the Treasury Notes. I recorded it on my 1912 upright piano that is just a little bit out of tune – just right to my ear.
What did you learn about the universal appeal of the scratch ticket? Instant gratification or something else?
IC: Most lottery games launch with a bunch of excitement and then gradually fade. Scratch tickets are unusual in that they just kept growing and remain the bread and butter product of all state lotteries. Part of what I find fascinating about scratch tickets is that they foreshadow the appeal of the mobile betting and gambling that people can do on their phones today. It is the original instant gratification in the palm of your hand, and that has not changed.
The podcast brings up tensions with legal gambling. What is the key takeaway you want audiences to walk away with?
IC: I find that with gambling everyone draws their line in a different place – in terms of what should be allowed, where it should be sold, how it should be marketed. These are really moral questions. So, I think there is real value in tracing the long transformation of gambling policy, to understand how we got from a world where basically all forms of gambling were illegal almost everywhere, to a world where almost all forms of gambling are legal almost everywhere. My hope is that in seeing that long arc, listeners can think through where they would draw their line, or if they have a line at all.
The podcast is making its way onto other media platforms, tell us where we can find it.
IC: You can find the first few episodes now on YouTube with incredible footage from the GBH archives (check out their Special Collection. ) You can also listen to “ Scratch & Win” here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Join Ian Coss and the creative team behind “Scratch & Win” – plus surprise guests from the podcast – for an inside look at what makes Mass. the lottery capital of America at this in-person event on March 26.
