Lottery is a form of gambling where players purchase tickets with numbers on them for the chance to win a prize. Many governments outlaw it, while others endorse it and run a state or national lottery to raise money for public projects and services. The winners are chosen by a random drawing or a computer algorithm. In the United States, there are several different types of lottery games, including instant-win scratch-off tickets and daily games that require players to select numbers. The largest of these is the Powerball game, which has a jackpot that can reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
The New Yorker story “The Lottery” was published in 1948, when there were still isolated rural pockets of the country where people spoke archaic European languages and believed that the world was a simpler place than it actually is. The setting of the story is idyllic, which makes the tragic outcome all the more shocking. The story reveals the human tendency to follow authority blindly even when that authority is clearly evil or incompetent. The murders of the villagers in this story, along with the mass incarceration of black Americans, profiling of Muslims after 9/11, and the deportation of immigrants are modern examples of following an authority without question.
As the story opens, Tessie is late for the Lottery ceremony because she had to finish washing dishes. She arrives amidst the banter of family heads discussing everyday issues like planting and rain, tractors, taxes and weeding. One man quotes a traditional rhyme: “Lottery in June/Corn be heavy soon.”
The head of each household draws a slip of paper that has been marked with a black spot. If the family head draws that slip, they must continue to draw until another black spot appears. They must also pay a fine for the previous lottery, and pay a percentage of the winnings to the town.
A small number of people who play the lottery know the odds of winning are very low, but they persist in their irrational behavior because they believe that if they can just make enough “money,” they will be able to provide for their families. I have spoken to a few people who play the lottery for years, spending $50, $100 a week. They tell me that they have quote-unquote systems for selecting their numbers, and that they buy their tickets only at certain stores or at particular times of day.
Most people who play the lottery have little idea how much of their winnings are being spent on administrative costs and the cost of running the drawing machine, which is designed to pick the correct number in a very limited time frame. In fact, the amount of winnings is often less than the advertised prize amount because the game has to be run at a profit in order to attract participants and increase sales. Fortunately, the prize amounts for the biggest games are usually very large, and this helps drive sales.