“In my eyes, the lottery (as it is today) is a no-win proposition” – Trent Hamm. This quote is very deep and is basically saying if a person wants to throw their money away, play the lottery. Even though gambling and the lottery have a lot of good effects, it has much harmful effect as well. The odds of winning the lottery are low. If a person wins, there are many things the person can do with the money, even though the possibility is extremely low. Many people get a great amount of trill in winning the lottery; some even go to the casino and win the jackpot. Some bad effect of gambling are addiction, money problems, and depression because of loss of money. Some good effect of gambling are jobs gambling establishments offer, and having a big …show more content…
In 2009, 42 states had a lottery, they made $52.3 billion. Prizes added to $32.3 billion, while the states got to keep$17.7 billion as revenue (CNN Money). If a person wins the lottery, the worst thing they can do is start spreading the word of their winnings. Once a person starts to tell people about their winnings, people will start begging them for their money. People will not care that the winners has other things to do with the money they have just want to suck the person dry. Also, winners do not need to let them winning the lottery intoxicate them. They should just act as if they had not won the lottery at all and keep doing what they have been doing regularly before they won the …show more content…
Sales averaged about $1.6 billion per state and D.C. But many anti-gambling advocates and skeptical lawmakers point to the staggering sums not as measures of success, but as signs of a deeper problem. They argue that lotteries have grown so big they're preying on problem gamblers and worsening some of the social ills — poverty, homelessness, and more — they were designed to address through new revenue. Expanding the business into new sales avenues is the last thing states should be doing, they say (USA Today). Lotteries rank first among the various forms of gambling in terms of gross revenues: total lottery sales in 1996 totaled $42.9 billion. 1982 gross revenues were $4 billion, representing an increase of 950% over the preceding 15 years, 1982-1996 (Gross Annual
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.
The Lottery gains through selling tickets a massive amount of utility (money/pleasure). Much more than one person who buys a lottery
The idea of winning a lottery is associated with luck, happiness and anticipation of good things. In Shirley Jackson's story, " The Lottery", this is not the case. The irony of the story is that the winner of the lottery gets stoned to death by everyone else in the town. The story is very effective because it examines certain aspects of human nature.
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)
This includes all forms of income from high to low and all races from black to white. A more financially set adult will spend more money gambling then the “minority and poor populations” as Will explains them. If these so called poor populations have no money will they be the ones flying all the way to Vegas spending money on gas, food, hotel, and entertainment? I think not the ones gambling are those who make a good living and can afford to spend thousands of dollars in Las Vegas. One thing all people can agree there is not a person out there that would wish to be average their whole life, everyone wants to be able to retire knowing they have money to send their kids to college or to even buy luxury items. This hope of one day winning it big is the reason people get up each day only to work long and hard hours at work as well as at home. People don’t just quit their job because they lost the lottery they will work many more days to buy a ticket and hope to win only to try again and again. People need something they can look forward to work hard and achieve things never done before and the lottery provides this for them. You take this away and the hard-working people no longer have anything to look forward to, nothing stops them from going out and doing
The meaning of the word “Lottery” is a “gambling game or method of raising money, as for some public charitable purpose, in which a large number of tickets are sold and a drawing is held for certain prizes” (“The Definition of Lottery”). In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, published in 1948, the word “lottery” takes on a whole new meaning. The lottery is a game of chance, but not the chance that the winner will be rewarded greatly if you win. It’s the chance of having the townspeople chase and throw stones at the “winner.” “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her.
The lottery is perceived as a great gamble, with an enormous cash payout. Most who play the game don’t ever assume they will win. In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery this is very much the case. Everyone plays the game but never assumes they will be the one winning the prize. That prize, as is tradition, is to be stoned to death. Jackson shows how hard it is to break traditions and go against the community, and that violence is in human nature.
In today’s society we perceive the lottery as being a great fortune brought down upon you by Lady Luck. It is a serendipitous event, even if the person has done nothing to earn it. One would never see the lottery as an unfortunate occasion that occurred in your life because it is supposed to bring prosperity into your life. Also, one would not dare to think that winning the lottery would bring such repercussions as injury or death. In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author could have used Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson as the town’s scapegoat due to their reluctance to change traditions, her horrible work ethic, and minority status as a woman.
Gambling has been an activity that has been around many states for a while. People like to gamble to test their luck and hopefully get lucky enough to win a prize. Nowadays you don 't have to go to the casino to test your luck, at majority of grocery stores they offer the ability to buy scratch off ticket and or play the powerball. Many people gamble to have fun, as well as, have a good time, but there are others that gambling becomes an addiction that is hard to control. The odds of winning are less favorable than the odds of losing. According to Jost, “lotteries in 43 states” as well as, DC “collectively” made “18 billion in revenue for the state,” along with the “local government.” (Jost,525) The lottery is a great investment for many states and the local government. Something that everyone has to be aware of is that the the lottery will always make a profit. Someone might get lucky enough to win 100 dollars, while 2 other people loss 100 dollars each. The big picture is that nobody is going to invest in a company that is not going to
“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.
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
In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the winner is in fact the loser, making the idea of winning completely twisted. Clearly, there is blatant irony in this because when one wins a lottery, there is typically a good connotation connected to it. However in “The Lottery,” winning means death--something that the people in the village have become accustomed to. In this story “The Lottery,” which is described as something that would closely resemble a festival, turns out to be something very sinister. Once a name is drawn from the black box, that person is placed in the town square and is stoned to death by anyone, child or adult, who is willing to partake in the act.
Have you ever wanted the chance to win millions upon millions of dollars with buying one single ticket? All of your dreams could come true when you play the lottery. When you play the lottery you have the possibility to change not only your life, but the people's lives around you. Many people in the state of Mississippi say that the lottery is a waste of money and that we state already has a casino system, but the lottery should be legal in the state of Mississippi because the winners can do good with their winnings and change not only their lives but other people's life.
Some of us over the course of our lives, have at least purchase one a lottery ticket. We go to our nearest liquor store, we buy the lottery ticket and pray we are the chosen one. But, how often do we stop and ask ourselves, where does the money from buying a lottery ticket go? A lot of people assume it’s all for fun and games, others might say the sales of lottery tickets are put back into the community, or simply the money is kept by the state, who at the end decide what to do with that money. The fact is that, when someone buys a lottery ticket that money is collected by states lotteries, and they’re the ones who distribute the money according to state law. And if any revenue is left to spare, it goes directly into the state treasury.