Photo: John Midgley

In some scratch lottery games, it’s not that hard to beat the odds.

In “Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code,” from February’s underworld-themed issue of Wired, Jonah Lehrer unravels the tale of a statistician who cracked the code and picked winning tickets 90 percent of the time — before scratching them.

In this Storyboard podcast, host Adam Rogers gets the inside scoop on this lottery saga from Lehrer and Wired features editor Mark Robinson. Could we have uncovered a new way the mob launders money?

“There are disturbing anomalies,” says Lehrer.

Listen in for more on how Lehrer found the story and why he suspects this scheme reaches further than just one guy. Special bonus content: Writers going off their beats, why Lehrer makes other journalists jealous, and the neuroscience of lotto glee.

You can’t win if you don’t listen….