The lottery is a game of chance in which people buy numbered tickets and win money if their numbers match those randomly drawn. It is also used to select judges or other public officials. People who dream of winning the lottery are called dreamers. There are many different ways to play the lottery, including by buying scratch-off tickets. Some people are better at it than others, but anyone can learn to increase their chances of winning by studying past results and by experimenting with different games.
In the eighties, when state governments were desperately searching for solutions to budget crises that would not enrage an increasingly anti-tax electorate, lottery advocates began changing tactics. Instead of arguing that state-run gambling could float most of a government’s budget, they argued that it could cover a single line item that was popular and nonpartisan—often education, but sometimes elder care or parks or aid for veterans.
As Cohen points out, this rebranding had the added advantage of obscuring long-standing ethical objections to lottery gambling. It allowed legalization advocates to argue that since people were going to gamble anyway, the government might as well pocket the profits.
This short story portrays the hypocrisy and evil nature of humans. Whether it is the lottery for kindergarten admissions or for units in a subsidized housing block, these kinds of lotteries create loads of eagerness and dreams amongst thousands of people. In addition, the names of the characters in this short story reveal class differences.