Scratch tickets advertise themselves, say convenience store owners, with flashy designs and ‘carnival barking’ intended to catch the eye and attract impulse buys. These tickets are on display at the Waite General Store in Washington County.

The Lottery: Selling Hope to the Hopeless

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The series explores how Mainers falling on hard times rely on the lottery to rescue them. A first-ever statistical analysis of Maine lottery sales and census data by Cornell University, commissioned by our newsroom, showed lottery ticket sales rise when people lose their jobs. The state government spent millions to sway Mainers to buy more lottery tickets, our investigation found.

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A first-ever statistical analysis of Maine Lottery ticket sales figures and census data shows sales go up when people lose their jobs.

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