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Do Lotteries Benefit the Poor?
Lotteries take advantage of the poor in several ways. The lottery entices the poor to waste their money on lottery tickets, rather than everyday necessities, such as food, clothing and shelter. The main way that lottery promoters succeed in attracting the poor is through the persuasive use of advertisements. Other members of anti-lottery groups believe lottery advertisements are deceitful and attract poor people to its promises. Flashy slogans and pictures of large amounts of money are more than enough to pull the needy closer. These poor people are those that least need to be attracted, because they do not have the money to spend on tickets. This wasted money on advertisements is capital that should be used to help the poor in socially useful programs. The lottery is nothing more than a money-taker that uses advertisements to persuade those in search of money to try the lottery.
The money spent on advertising for the lottery is an absurdly large figure. Not only are the poor wasting money on lotto tickets, but the government is also wasting money on advertising for the lottery. The government only started to heavily advertise when they saw the annual sale of lotto tickets declining. In 1998, the lottery’s “sales growth slowed by two point five percent in one year… and new lottery products were created to rekindle public interest, focused primarily towards the poor” (Ira Teinowitz 3). Most of these products consisted of corny scratch of tickets where prizes got no higher than five hundred dollars. It has been reported that nearly 200 million dollars were spent on lotto advertising in one year between the 38 participating state lotteries (Teinowitz 3). “The New York lottery takes in more than $2 billion in sales each year, and it spends $30 million in advertising to keep the cash rolling in”(Joshua Shenk 22). This is very destructive spending, because this money could be used for schools, charities, and college education.
Besides the money spent on such ads, these ads are obviously focused towards the poor person who just needs to read a few catchy words to help himself by a ticket. A study by the Heartland Institute has indicated that the poor spend more money than the non-poor on lotteries, “not only as a percentage of their income, but also in absolute terms” (Shenk 22). The advertisements have slogans such as “Play the Lotto, and you could win the stuff dreams are made of”(Shenk 22).
In her first publication, “Against the Odds, and Against the Common Good”, Gloria Jiménez tries to convince the readers that the lottery business is urging people to gamble. The thesis is apparent in the first paragraph: “Still, when all is said and done about lotteries bringing a bit of excitement into the lives of many people and bringing a vast amount of money into the lives of a few, the states should not be in the business of urging people to gamble” (118). The author successfully presents valid arguments to support her opposition to state-run lotteries throughout the essay; whether the evidence will properly convince most readers the way she wants them to, is questionable. Although the valid arguments and evidence Jiménez provides is adequate for the essay, I believe only one argument really stands out to convince her readers the purpose of the essay.
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the reader is introduced to a utopian community who practice the tradition of a lottery every year. At first glance, it seems like a nice day and the kids are just collecting rocks while waiting for their parents to arrive. All of the citizens show some excitement over the upcoming the lottery. The text states,
Has the lottery helped education as promised? There has been evidence in the Bible and ancient Rome texts that lotteries can be traced all the way back to Europe in the 15th century (Willmann 1). After that the lotteries made their way across the Atlantic from England to the United States.The first American lottery was established in Puerto Rico in 1934. This was followed by the New Hampshire lottery in 1964.The entire history of the lottery includes the debate over whether or not it is ethical.Lotteries are not only unethical but also ineffective ways to raise state revenues for education.
...lottery’ indicates blind acceptance and a lack of understanding of the need to change to benefit and improve society. Through the use of characterisation the authors are able incorporate the idea that to move forward in society change needs to be undertaken.
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.
Originally printed in the June 26, 1948 issue of The New Yorker, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” brought about controversy from the beginning. Magazine subscriptions were immediately canceled due to the outrage at the brutal underlying message. Mrs. Jackson tore down virtually every institution that American Citizens hold dear to their hearts. Jackson believes we should not just blindly follow authority or blindly partake in any traditions that we may not understand to the full extent. “Any human institution which is allowed to continue unchallenged and unconsidered until it becomes a destructive, rather than a constructive, force in men's lives…” “The Lottery” explicates this in a manner in which you must know the underlying message to understand the concept that is presented to you. Mrs. Jackson has many insightful remarks in her short story “The Lottery” if you are equipped to understand the underlying message. As with most stories you really cannot take “The Lottery” for just face value. You must delve into the story to unravel Mrs. Jackson’s seemly horrific story. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” Mrs. Jackson allegorizes and satires American society, beliefs, tradition, and their innate fear of change through her use of symbolism.
Introducing the option of Nevada having a lottery has been enticing for many. Although lotteries might provide extra revenue for school, when one takes a deeper look into the facts, everyone loses.
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
The theme in “The Lottery” is violence and cruelty. Violence and cruelty is a major theme because there is a lot of violence and cruelty in the world. The Lottery has been read as addressing such issues as the public's fascination with salacious and scandalizing journalism, McCarthyism, and the complicity of the general public in the victimization of minority groups, epitomized by the Holocaust of World War II. The Holocaust was very cruel and violent cause other people didn’t like certain people so they just kill them and their children and still now we have violence and cruelty with wars and people that hate each other.
“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.
Shirley Jackson was a criticized female writer that wrote about US’s scramble for conformity and finding comfort in the past or old traditions. When Jackson published this specific short story, she got very negative feedback and even death threats. In the fictionial short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, a drawing takes place during the summer annually in a small town in New England. In this particular work, the lottery has been a tradition for over seventy years and has been celebrated by the townspeople every year. In detail, Richard H. Williams explains in his “A Critique of the Sampling Plan Used in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery””, he explains the process of how the lottery works. “The sampling plan consists of two
Mason, Paul M.; Steagall, Jeffrey W., The elasticity of demand for lotto tickets and the corresponding welfare effects., Public Finance Review, Sep97, Vol. 25, Issue 5.
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.
Study Commission showed “ that low and moderate income lottery taxpayers spend more on the lottery than do middle income taxpayers” (Analysis 3,4). In addition, this study revealed that education levels do affect how much a person spends on the lottery. The biggest spenders were