Lottery is a game of chance in which winners are selected through a random drawing. Government-sponsored lotteries are similar to gambling in that people pay a small amount of money in order to have the chance to win a large sum of money, often up to millions of dollars.
Jackson’s story takes place within a single day in an unnamed town in which villagers will gather for the yearly lottery. Children recently on summer break are the first to assemble, and they organize themselves into groups to begin aggregating stones and sorting them. Adult men and women soon join them, exhibiting the stereotypical normalcy of small-town life as they warmly gossip and discuss their work.
The casting of lots to make decisions and determine fates has a long history in human society, including several references in the Bible. The distribution of property by lot is even older, with the ancient Romans giving away land and slaves as prizes during their Saturnalian feasts and other entertainments.
Throughout history, state governments have used lotteries to raise funds for various projects and services, including public education. Studies have shown that a key to gaining and maintaining approval for a lottery is the degree to which its proceeds are seen as benefiting a specific public good. This argument seems especially effective in times of economic stress, when the public is likely to fear that its tax-based government budget will be slashed.
Modern lotteries are typically structured as cash prize games, in which a certain percentage of the total revenue is allocated to prize pools. The remaining money is divided amongst the winners based on their ticket numbers. In the past, lottery revenues often expanded dramatically after introduction, but they eventually leveled off and sometimes began to decline, leading to constant innovation in the form of new games.
