This past Christmas, a man in Vacaville, Calif., learned a grim, but useful, holiday lesson: Sometimes, don’t spread glad tidings. Keep the good news to yourself. It was Dec. 20, and the city of about 100,000, located midway between Sacramento and San Francisco, was festooned with white lights and toy reindeer. Hoping to get his hands on a bit of extra cash for the holidays, the Vacaville man went to a Lucky grocery store and paid $30 for a scratch-off lottery ticket that odds said would leave him at a loss. But the ticket turned out to be a winner, and promised to flood his bank account with $10,000, or so he ... (full story)