How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off in a Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling whereby a prize, normally money, is awarded to a random winner or group of winners. The process may be used to select a team from equally-competing players, or to distribute units in a subsidized housing block, kindergarten placements, and even university admissions. A lottery is also a way to resolve conflicts by giving everyone a fair chance.
A lot of people like to play the lottery, either for the chance of winning big or because it is fun and exciting. However, many people do not realize that the odds of winning are very low. Moreover, some people are not aware that playing the lottery can be dangerous. Here are some tips to help you avoid getting ripped off in a lottery.
The short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a cautionary tale about the evil nature of human beings. It reveals the evil that lurks in small, seemingly peaceful looking societies. It also shows that if the majority of a population supports something, it is not necessarily right.
Throughout history, lottery-like arrangements have been used to settle disputes and allocate resources, from selecting the next king of a kingdom to determining who gets Jesus’ clothes after his Crucifixion. The first lotteries to sell tickets with prizes in the form of money were probably held in the early thirteenth century. They became very popular in the Low Countries, where they helped pay for everything from churches to public buildings. The lottery was a common fund-raising device for the mercantile and financial classes, as well as the working class.
As the nineteenth-century tax revolt intensified, state legislators began to look around for ways to float their budgets without angering voters. Lotteries popped up as an alternative to raising taxes and cutting services, especially when the state was facing the cost of paying for wars or helping the elderly, sick, or poor. By the late nineteen-sixties, twenty-one states had approved state-run lotteries, most of them in the South and West.
Cohen writes that legalization advocates began to promote lotteries by downplaying the moral pitfalls, arguing that, since gamblers would be betting anyway, governments might as well reap the profits. But this argument had its limits: It implied that government should run heroin lotteries, too. It also did not help that many white voters thought that lottery proceeds would mainly benefit black numbers players, who might then foot the bill for services they opposed.
The story demonstrates that, although people claim to be governed by reason, it is often difficult for them to abandon ancient traditions and beliefs. It also demonstrates that there is no guarantee that democracy will work, and it may be dangerous to assume that the majority of a society is right, or that a small town in Vermont is any different from any other place. The story highlights the fact that humans can be cruel, even to those closest to them.