The lottery is a form of gambling that involves paying for a ticket and matching a series of numbers to those randomly drawn by a machine. The winner takes home a prize, which is often cash. Lotteries have long been a popular source of state funding. They have been used for such diverse purposes as the building of Harvard College, the supplying of guns for the Continental Army, and the rebuilding of Faneuil Hall in Boston. They have also been used to fund other public goods, such as education.
In recent decades, state governments have become increasingly interested in the potential revenue generated by a lottery. As a result, lotteries have expanded into new games and have grown in size. They have also shifted away from traditional methods of fundraising and toward aggressive advertising. This has raised questions about the ethical nature of the lottery, and it has been criticized for its negative effects on poor people and problem gamblers.
Lotteries are an example of a policy area that is typically handled piecemeal, with little overall vision or direction. After a lottery is established, its officials face a continuing evolution that often results in decisions that are based on short-term pressure for revenues rather than on the general desirability of gambling.
The character of Tessie Hutchinson in Shirley Jackson’s story is an allusion to Anne Hutchinson, the religious dissenter whose Antinomian beliefs were judged heretical by the Puritan hierarchy and led to her banishment from Massachusetts in 1638. The gloomy fate of her family members illustrates how much tradition can blind the mind and limit a person’s ability to reason.