David Milch, the storied mind also behind 'Deadwood,' changed television. Now, according to a lawsuit, the racetrack regular has lost his homes, owes the IRS $17 million and is on a $40-a-week allowance. Still, his supporters stay close: "He's brilliant.” This story first appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Adding flashing lights and music to gambling encourages risky decision-making—even if you’re a rat.

User Cinnamon Nicole alleges to have spent all her money on lottery tickets with the assumption she'd win the $1.6 billion jackpot, but is now asking for help.

Whoever might win the Powerball lottery this week, assuming someone draws the right set of numbers, will claim about $1.5 billion before taxes. That’s the equivalent of a year’s worth of work at gross wages of $720,000 per hour. It’s enough, should the winner choose to invest in real estate, to afford to buy all of the residential property in the town of Heber City and have enough left over to buy each and every resident of that city a new car worth $30,000.

Today's $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot will provide a windfall for state governments, which often justify lotteries by saying they raise money for education. The truth is far more complex.

The US Powerball lottery jackpot is expected to rise to at least $1.3bn (£895m) after a 19th draw without a winner on Saturday night. No one matched the numbers - 32, 16, 19, 57, 34 and Powerball number 13 - for the prize of almost $950m  (£654m) which was up for grabs on Saturday.

To grasp how unlikely it was for Gloria C. MacKenzie, an 84-year-old Florida widow, to have won the $590 million Powerball lottery in May, Robert Williams, a professor of health sciences at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, offers this scenario: head down to your local convenience store, slap $2 on the counter, and fill out a six-numbered Powerball ticket. It will take you about 10 seconds. To get your chance of winning down to a coin toss...

The largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history could easily grow to $800 million by Saturday night’s Powerball drawing – and even $1 billion next week if no winner is drawn. A record-breaking $700 million is at stake Saturday after eighteen draws went by without a jackpot-winning ticket. That figure grew Thursday by $25 million and is expected to increase further before the lucky numbers are selected as states continue to see surges in ticket sales...

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. But someone has to win, right? This simulator can play a huge amount of draws in a split second to remind you about the chances you really have. You will most likely lose everything. Share your results if you can.

Governed for decades by racketeers and corrupt politicians, Atlantic City blew its chances at revival. By Steven Malanga. (Autumn)

The former security chief for a national association that operates lotteries personally bought two tickets that won jackpots in Kansas, investigators said Monday, bringing to five the number of states where he may have fixed lotteries.

Pete Rose remains banned for life from Major League Baseball. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced Monday that he had rejected Rose's plea for reinstatement, citing his continued gambling and evidence that he bet on games when he was playing for the Cincinnati Reds. Manfred said in a letter sent to Rose and made public that baseball's hits king hasn't been completely honest about his gambling. The commissioner also noted that Rose continues to...

In 2003, an accountant with little poker expertise and the auspicious name of Chris Moneymaker won the main event at the World Series of Poker, in Las Vegas, taking home two and a half million dollars in prize money. His path to victory was televised on ESPN, which had revamped its coverage of the competition that year to create a sleek and accessible package that resembled the network’s major-league sports broadcasts.

Inmate Alton Brown claimed the paper's decision to stop printing gambling odds ruined his illegal jailhouse book-making operation.

An in-depth investigation into how Paul Phua rose from a numbers runner in Borneo to the world’s biggest bookie and poker impresario -- and how the FBI hooked him, only to have to let him go. By Brett Forrest.

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman declared Tuesday that daily fantasy sports constitute illegal gambling in his state, and he sent game operators DraftKings and FanDuel cease-and-desist notices in a significant blow to the embattled, billion-dollar industry. Schneiderman demanded DraftKings and FanDuel, the two industry giants, stop accepting "wagers" from New York residents. He is not, at this point, asking the companies to discontinue operations in the state.

A major scandal is erupting in the multibillion-dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. On Monday, the two major fantasy companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses’ integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading, that employees were placing bets using information not generally available to the public.

Two fantasy companies defended their businesses’ integrity after accusations that employees were placing bets on information not available to the public.

People don't play the lottery because they expect to get rich. They play the lottery because it's fun to indulge in the fantasy that, one day, their lives could suddenly get easier.