The Other Massachusetts Miracle

Scratch & Win

GBH News

History

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Part 8: Most lottery games follow a predictable life cycle: a burst of interest followed by a long decline. But something else happened with the scratch ticket, and it changed how every lottery in the country operates.

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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

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Scratch and Win comes from the Cape Playhouse in Dennis Village, now playing
0:05.6	Anastasia the Musical. Up next, the Broadway hit Come From Away. Tickets at capeplayhouse.com.
0:15.5	Okay, it's the lottery tickets right here.
0:17.0	Ooh. What are we looking at here?
0:19.4	FedEx now. Used to be UPS.
0:22.9	You might remember back in episode one, we met a convenience store owner named Glenn Maiet.
0:29.4	He was behind the counter on day one of the scratch ticket era when customers lined up to try the new instant game.
0:37.2	That same store, Maetsz, is now run by
0:40.2	his daughter, Tracy Mayette. Can you say what we're looking at here? You're looking at my delivery
0:45.2	scratch tickets. This box you just got is small enough to hold under one arm, but Tracy shows me a
0:52.0	receipt listing the total value, and it's a pretty big number.
0:56.3	In case you're wondering, there's no point in stealing scratch tickets because the state would just invalidate them.
1:02.2	But still, staring at this box of tickets on a table, I feel like I'm standing in a bank vault.
1:08.7	I can say it to you, but that's what's in this box.
1:11.8	Got it.
1:12.7	And this is we would keep in me in.
1:14.5	Oh, yeah.
1:18.2	50 years ago, when Glenn sold that first scratch ticket, it cost a dollar.
1:23.7	The maximum prize was $10,000.
1:26.7	And the only way to get that prize was to match all four spots on the ticket.
1:31.6	You had one chance to win big.
1:33.9	And of course, there was exactly one scratch ticket for sale.
	...

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