Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code

“I’m not the kind of guy who hears voices. But that night, as I passed the station, I heard a little voice coming from the back of my head…‘If you do it that way, if you use that algorithm, there will be a flaw. The game will be flawed. You will be able to crack the ticket. You will be able to plunder the lottery.’”

The Afghan Connection

Money from relatives abroad, the lifeline for many Afghani’s, moves primarily through small hawala</em exchanges, which shift currency through cellphones, fax lines, and trust. When money moves in Afghanistan, however, connections to the heroin trade and terrorist groups are never far.

Weedmart

On the pair of entrepreneurs behind a Wal-Mart of weed in Oakland. The duo is talking IPO. “Everybody I was meeting was a little bit older, more a part of the hippie generation,” says one. “I was like, ‘I bet there’s so much room for innovation and new ideas.’”

The Last Temptation of Ted

What has Ted Haggard, who left the New Life megachurch after admitting he purchased crystal meth and sexual favors from a male escort, been doing in the four years since? Selling insurance door to door and then… founding a new church and returning to the pulpit.