The Lottery is a form of gambling, which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. There are many types of the lottery. Many people love to play the lottery; some even cannot spend the whole day without playing it. Lottery begins to take a great place in people's life it is becoming essential for some persons; in fact, it is a way to get money without working hard. The only thing that you have to do is: choose the right alignment of numbers or have the winning scratch card, depending on the kind of lottery. This idea of winning money very easily is very appreciated by a certain number of persons. Although lottery is support of many people, some governments prohibit it ("Lottery in The United States") 1 and this is a very good idea because in my opinion, the lottery is a very bad thing.
To begin, proponents of the lottery support the fact that when you are lucky enough to get money without any trouble, why do not take advantages of this? The Lottery changes totally the life of a lot of people, you can pass from millionaire to billionaire. Neil Trotter, a car mechanic is a good example of people who have a better life because of lottery. He won £108M and he planned to follow his passion for British touring car racing ("Neil Trotter named £108m Euromillions lottery winner") 2. However, people tend to forget that there is only one winner. What about the others millions of people who buy tickets in order to win the jackpot? They bought on average 3 tickets per person. We can take the example of the Powerball Lottery, which is a kind of lottery, the probability to win the jackpot is only 1 on 175,223,510 (“Wasserstein”) 3. We see how it is highly unlikely that there is a winner unless they are really fortunate. Someti...
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...erstein, Ronald. "A Statistician's View: What Are Your Chances Winning
The Powerball Lottery?." Huffingtonpost. N.p., 16 May 2013. Web. 3 Apr 2014.
4 "What percentage of people play the lottery?." answers Yahoo. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2014
5 Wollaston, Victoria. ": Our brains cannot cope with the odds of winning so we make irrational decisions."Dailymail. N.p., 02 Aug 2013. Web. 3 Apr 2014
6 Dobson, James. "Our position (lotteries)." Focus on the family. Focus on the Family Issue Analysts, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2014
7Jones, Michael. "Lotteries." govinfo.library. Gaming Law Review, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2014.
8 Uren, Adam. ""It won't happen to you..."." . N.p., 01 Jun 2013. Web. 10 Apr 2014.
9Jen, Doll, ed. "A Treasury of Terribly Sad Stories of Lotto Winners." . N.p., 30 Mar 2012. Web. 10 Apr 2014. It won't happen to you! Average weekly lottery player loses almost £150 a year
The following two paragraphs are a summary of Gloria Jimenez's essay Against the Odds and Against the Common Good. States should neither allow nor encourage state-run lotteries. There are five major arguments that people use to defend lotteries. One is that most lotteries are run honestly, but if gambling is harmful to society it is irrelevant to argue if they are honest or not. The second is that lotteries create jobs, but there are only a small handful of jobs that would be eliminated if lotteries were put out of business. Another argument that would support keeping lotteries is that, other than gambling addicts, people freely choose to buy lottery tickets. This is true, however, there are misleading advertisements that may cause people to buy tickets under false pretenses.
“Why We Keep Playing the Lottery”, by freelance journalist Adam Piore takes a very in depth look as to what drives millions of Americans to continually play the lottery when their chances of winning are virtually non-existent. He believes that because the odds of winning the lottery are so small that Americans lose the ability to conceptualize how unlikely it is that they are going to win, and therefore the risk of playing has less to do with the outcome, and more to do with hope that they are feeling when they decide to play. It 's essentially, "a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale." (Piore 700) He also states that many Americans would rather play the lottery thinking ,"boy, I could win $100 million" (705) as opposed to thinking about all of the money they could lose over time.
Abcarian, Richard, and Marvin Klotz. "The Lottery." Literature: the Human Experience. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's, 2006. 350-56. Print.
The Lottery gains through selling tickets a massive amount of utility (money/pleasure). Much more than one person who buys a lottery
Typically, when someone thinks of a lottery they think of something positive and exciting but contrary to this idea in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the connotation has an entirely different meaning. As the story begins, readers lean towards the belief that the town in which Jackson depicts is filled with happiness and joy. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson 247) We soon realize that this notion is far from the truth. As the townspeople gather in the square for the annual lottery, which sole purpose is to stone someone to death by randomly pulling a paper out of a black box with a black dot on it, it is learned
Winning the lottery is a dream most people have; it is magical thinking, believing that you, the ticket buyer will be the one defying all the odds. The only ones, from the hedonistic utilitarian standpoint whosehappiness will increase are those who actually win the lottery, a very small number from among all the players. The hedonistic utilitarian standpoint is not ethically recommendable because the lottery is only selling the dream of winning it while filling the state coffers with people’s hard earned money. (Brusseau, J. 2012)
Carlyle, Erin. "11 Biggest Lottery Winners Ever: How They Planned To Spend The Money."Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
We see a very disturbing ending in the Shirley Jackson’s, The Lottery where the reader believes that the lottery in mention is solely a monetary game of chance, like in our lives presently. However,
"The Lottery" is a short story that shows just how disturbing the human mind can be at times. As the story proceeds it builds the reader up till the end where what you thought was going to happen did not turn out that way. But is that not how our lives are portrayed? Do we not build ourselves up to society believing what they say and do until the matter is put into our hands? Mrs. Hutchinson was a follower of society just like we are. Everyday was the same routine and every year she played the lottery just like all of the other town people. But this year would be a very different year for Mrs. Hutchinson because her chance at the lottery was about to happen. Now as a reader in this day, we would think of the lottery to be a great prize to receive but not during the days of these town people.
The 'Standard' of the 'Stand Justice and the Lottery. Political Studies, 32(2), 190-202. Kurlander, E. (2012).
“The Lottery” was quite disturbing to read. It is an very unusual story that has an ending that will have you baffled. You will want to reread certain parts to see if there is anything thing that you could have missed. The title of the short story is also misleading. In most cases the lottery is a good thing. People don’t win punishment and lotteries don’t hurt them. But in this story it does just that. The author did a great job of telling how anyone and everyone can follow tradition blindly. It is dangerous not to have a mind of your own and to just follow the crowd even if you don’t understand on agree on why something is happening.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1986. 862-868
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Gardner, Janet E.; Lawn, Beverly; Ridl, Jack; Schakel, Pepter. 3rd Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 242-249. Print.
The lottery is something everyone wants to win no matter what the prize. People buy their tickets and await their fates. Some people win the lottery and many more lose. Losing the lottery causes something inside of us to die, but it is almost impossible to quit playing. The gambling becomes an addiction. The reason why people are constantly drawn to these lotteries is because deep down, the people who play them are convinced they can win.
From the time the Europeans first landed on the Atlantic shore, lotteries have been a part of the American society. According to Will Spink, most states are currently operating a state lottery despite its bleak history in the U.S. (Spink 1). Since 1983, North Carolina has introduced lottery bills in the legislature every year (NC Christian 15). North Carolina Governor, Mike Easley, favors a lottery for increasing revenues for education (Analysis 2). However lucrative state lotteries appear on the surface, they create even more moral and financial difficulties for citizens, and this should encourage states to look at other means of resources instead of legalized gambling.