The lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn for a prize. It has a long history in many countries and is common in modern times. The prizes are usually cash or goods, but can also be services, vacations, property, or even a slave. Whether the prize money is a small percentage of total ticket sales or a percentage of a single large jackpot, the odds of winning are generally very low, and people tend to spend more than they can afford to lose. This can lead to addiction and debt, which is why most states have laws against it.
In the United States, state-sponsored lotteries are popular ways to raise revenue for public projects. The lottery has a broad appeal because it is perceived as an attractive way to finance the public good without imposing onerous taxes on poor and middle-class citizens. The immediate post-World War II period was a time of fiscal crisis for many states, and the appeal of the lottery increased as a solution to their budgetary problems. The lottery has become especially popular in states with larger social safety nets that maybe need extra revenue. Lottery commissioners recognized that the more a ticket cost and the higher the jackpot, the more likely people were to play. The logic behind this is simple: the more the expected utility of a monetary gain exceeds the expected disutility of a monetary loss, the purchase will be a rational decision for the average person.
This is the logic behind ad campaigns for lottery tickets, which focus on how much the ticket costs and how high the jackpot is. In the United States, a fifty-dollar scratch-off ticket is available at check-cashing outlets and even Dollar Generals. Billboards for Powerball and Mega Millions loom on the highways, all with enticing jackpots that make you want to buy a ticket, even though your chances of winning are slim to none.
The short story “Lottery” by Shirley Jackson tells a familiar tale of family angst and social tensions that boil over during the lottery drawing. It’s set in an era when rural pockets of the U.S. still had people who spoke archaic European languages like Scottish Gaelic. It starts with the head of each household drawing a slip of paper from a box. The slip is marked with a black spot. If a person draws that slip, everyone in that household will have to draw again for another slip.
The story ends with a twist that shows how the townspeople feel about this lottery. The children gather first, of course, and assemble in the order that they always do for the drawing. They are excited, and the story reflects the morals of the period, with no mention of the fact that this lottery is about to result in murder. The underlying truth of the story is that the lottery is not about chance at all, but rather about the inevitability of losing, and the nagging feeling that, however improbable it might be, someone has to win, just once.
