This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and

tools together in one place. It's your digital HQ where you can increase productivity,

enable flexibility and automate workflows. Plus, Slack is full of game-changing features

like huddles for quick check-ins or Slack Connect, which helps you connect with partners

inside and outside of your company. Slack, where the future works. Get started at

Slack.com slash DHQ. So Bella brings me the post and I'm like, oh no, this won't be good.

I mean, it's a vet spill. But then I remember many pets pet insurance. My complete policy

covers Bella for up to 15,000 pounds of vet fees. And breathe. Ensure your happiness with

many pets pet insurance. Get a quote at manypets.com.

Conditions and exclusions apply.

This is on point. I'm Megna Chocro-Bardi. There's a company called Scientific Games Incorporated.

It's a soothingly benign corporate moniker that invokes, I don't know, maybe a modern-day

app maker. But Scientific Games Inc is so much more than that, so very much more. Scientific

Games, in fact, is one of the reasons why Americans spend almost $100 billion on state

lottery. Every single year. That's more than we spend on coffee, cigarettes, or smartphones.

That's also more than we spend on books, video games, sports, and movie tickets combined.

Well how? And why did that happen? And with such spectacular rapidity that when the first

scratch game was introduced in 1974 in Massachusetts, a mere two years later, every state lottery

that existed in 1976 had adopted scratch tickets and soon many more states jumped on the

Lotto bandwagon. So where is all that money going? Well Jonathan Cohen answers those questions

in his new book. It's called For a Dollar and a Dream. State Lotteries in Modern America.

And he joins us today from Fairfield, Connecticut. Jonathan Cohen, welcome to On Point.

...