In a lottery, people choose numbers in order to win a prize. The prizes can be money or goods. Most lotteries are organized so that a percentage of the proceeds go to good causes. If the entertainment value and other non-monetary benefits of playing a lottery are high enough for an individual, then buying a ticket may be a rational decision. This is known as expected utility.
The large jackpots in modern lottery games are often advertised as having a chance to roll over, meaning that they will grow even larger in the next drawing. This strategy drives ticket sales, and the bigger prizes earn lottery games free publicity on news sites and newscasts. However, the enlarged jackpots come at a cost to potential bettors. The actual amount that a winner will receive is less than the advertised sum, because costs of organizing and running the lottery must be deducted, and a percentage goes as revenues and profits to the state or lottery sponsor.
When politicians facing budget deficits endorsed lotteries, they did so because they perceived them as a way to maintain current services without raising taxes. Moreover, they could claim that the lottery would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars — a so-called budgetary miracle — and relieve them of the unpleasant prospect of raising taxes on their constituents.
As a result, racial minorities became the primary beneficiaries of the lottery. The events of Jackson’s short story show that the practice shows humankind’s hypocrisy and evil nature. The villagers “greeted each other and exchanged bits of gossip and handled each other without a flinch of sympathy.” (Shirley 281).
