Record book
The 10 Biggest Lottery Jackpots of All Time
Ten record jackpots, the tickets that won them, and the part nobody puts on the billboard: what the money did to the people who got it.
12 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages
Reading room
How prize games actually work — the law that shapes them, the arithmetic underneath them, and how to tell a real win from the other kind.
Long odds
The 10 Luckiest People of All Time
Lightning strikes, lottery doubles, shipwrecks survived and one man who found a Roman treasure hoard looking for a hammer — plus the ones that do not survive a fact-check.
14 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages
Long odds
The 10 Unluckiest Lottery Stories Ever Told
The other side of the luck list: people who won and then didn't. Almost every one of them turns on a small, avoidable thing, which is what makes them worth reading.
11 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages
Odd lots
The Most Bizarre Sweepstakes Prizes Ever Offered
Ten prizes that made it past a legal department: a Swedish village, a haunted attraction, a used fighter jet, a lifetime of beer, and one prize that was a whole other person's life.
12 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages
Just in case
So You Won the Powerball. Now What?
Sign it, hide it, say nothing, and call three specific professionals before you call anyone else. What the winners who kept their money did differently, in the order it matters.
15 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages
Long odds
The Science of Luck
Psychologists have studied people who consider themselves lucky and found real, repeatable differences — none of which have anything to do with chance. Here is what holds up, what doesn't, and why the distinction matters.
11 min read
Don't get had
Nine People Who Beat the Lottery (and Eight Who Got Caught)
Rigged random number generators, a syndicate that bought every combination, the man who stole the Monopoly pieces, and the MIT students who found a rollover that paid more than it cost.
13 min read · 9 entries · 10 pages
Don't get had
Twelve Things That Are Not a Winning Notification
Every prize scam has to do one thing a real promotion never does: get money or credentials out of you before the prize arrives. Everything else is set dressing, and the set dressing is where the tells are.
11 min read · 12 entries · 13 pages
Field guide
Ten Lines in the Official Rules, and What They Actually Mean
Official Rules are written in a private dialect, but there are only about ten sentences that matter. Here is what each one is doing, and what it tells you about the people who wrote it.
12 min read · 10 entries · 11 pages