Personal Narrative: The Multi-State Lottery

According to CBC News, the odds of winning Canada's Lotto Max jackpot was one in an almost 29 million chance. “You are three times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident driving 16 kilometres to buy your ticket than winning the jackpot” (CBC News, 2009). This is not ethically desirable, as the odds of winning are exceedingly low. Therefore, from the hedonistic utilitarian standpoint, over the long term, the only people gaining pleasure/happiness are those winning, which is a very small number of

When you think of the lottery, what do you imagine? Gold, A new house, maybe a car? This short story is nothing like you’re thinking. “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson, conveys its message through the use of diction, dialogue, irony, and theme. "The Lottery" first appeared in the New Yorker in 1948.

In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, the small village, at first, seems to be lovely, full of tradition, with the townspeople fulfilling their civic duties, but instead this story is bursting with contrast. The expectations that the reader has are increasingly altered. The title of this short story raises hope, for in our society the term “lottery” typically is associated with winning money or other perceived “good” things. Most people associate winning a lottery with luck, yet Jackson twists this notion around and the luck in this village is with each of the losers.

            Furthermore, this lottery does not arouse the optimistic personalities that lotteries are known for, but rather conveys the apprehensive side of everyone in town and how serious it is to them.  When Mr. Summers cites, "Well now...guess we better get started, get this over with, so we can get back to work," it sounds like this drawing is not going to be as long and as serious, according to his light tone (p.424).  But in response to Mr. Summers, Old Man Warner says, "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody" (p.425).  This indicates that this drawing will be no

The Game of Lottery As mentioned before, the most popular form of lottery is the methed of random number selection. In the American lottery, a player first picks five different whole numbers between 1 and 59. Upon calculation, there are 5,006,386 combinations that could be made from the availability of these numeral combinations. After the player has chosen their five numbers, they pick another, final number that is between 1 and 35 - the powerball. A list of the combinations would look like (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), (1, 2, 3, 4, 6) and so on all the way up to (55, 56, 57, 58, 59). Thus, in calculating a player's chance

The lottery offers a wonderful opportunity to possibly win millions of dollars. While this might seems amazing, it might not be as wonderful as imagined. In fact, maybe even the opposite might true as stated by numerous studies and research done since the 1970s.

The lottery in this country is a big past time for Americans. It gives hope to the hopeless and disappointment to a multitude of participants. A quick view of statistical information regarding the lottery shows that out of all people who take part in this country wide phenomenon, each individual person has a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of hitting the jackpot (AmericanStatisticalAssociation.org). The author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, argues that the state lotteries are “urging people to gamble”. Gloria Jimenez, of whom is the author of “Against The Odds and Against the Common Good”, creates assumptions that support her stance on her argument. Jimenez also uses the viewpoint from people who disagree with her logic, by stating various counter statements that contradict her stance. To fully understand Jimenez, we have to view the different factors of her stance on why states should not be urging people to gamble, assumptions that she makes to support her stance and countering views of people who don’t necessarily agree with her argument.

     Two of the biggest holidays in the United States are Christmas and Easter. Both of which are derived from Christian beliefs. Even though 'The Lottery' is apparently a pagan ritual, violent and horrific, it is appropriate, only by the fact that the participants no longer remember, or seem to care, what the original intent of the ritual or the significance of its traditions.

All you have to do to win the Jackpot is to check if your ticket matches the exact numbers drawn in your favorite lottery. “Jackpot” is the prize winning in Row/Level 1 of a particular draw.

Throughout the world, especially in the United States. There are many fun things to do, for example, the lottery. The lottery works by luring people to pay a mini fortune in order to try and win a large fortune. Hearing about this might sound amusing and suspenseful; however, there are more downsides than advantages. Collaborating in the lottery is a waste of money, time, and effort.

In order to win the lottery, you have to be serious about it. I remember seeing Cynthia Stafford on a news channel explaining her visualization exercises that help her to win, and the news anchor was making jokes about it. I was thinking to myself this is why the Law of Attraction doesn't work for some people. You can't make jokes about the Law of Attraction, you have to take this concept very seriously in order for it to work. Joking around or being skeptical about it will dismiss everything. People are very believable when it comes to spiritual concepts such as angels and demons. So why is manifesting the lottery so far fetched? Just because it hasn't worked for you doesn't mean it won't happen. You have to believe in your heart and soul that you're going to win, and you will. When that happens, nothing can stop

When I think of the lottery, I think of a game basically where they choose one number and something or something gets chosen.

If you live in the United States of America then you know exactly what the Powerball is. Essentially, it is an American lottery game offered around forty-four states in the United States of America. Every day millions of people are competing to buy lottery tickets from anywhere that they can find them. This includes gas stations, grocery stores, and even in malls. The sad thing about this lottery game is that most of the income from the lottery ticket goes straight back to the state where you bought your ticket from. When a Powerball ticket is bought, around fifty to sixty-five percent of the two dollars goes to the prize money. While less than a dime, goes to running the lottery and twelve to fourteen cents also goes to the store that sold the ticket.

As many of us have seen, the lottery ticket prices stay about the same whilst the prize continues to sky rocket into the billions. Recently, the ever so popular Powerball jackpot lottery played across America rose to the stupendous amount of 1.6 billion dollars before it was won in three different cities. Who knows what the money has gone to since; possibly towards items of great use or maybe even things of great nonsense? Whatever the money has been used for, the conquest to find happiness for many is continuously on the prowl.

After faced with new responsibilities, a person is subject to become overwhelmed and at times insecure. When being a lottery winner, privacy becomes nonexistent because they are now considered to be a local celebrity. Being obligated to uphold the duties of a celebrity places a large burden on the life of a lottery winner. A lottery winner will begin to over analysis events taking place and question the intentions of people around them. They begin to constantly ask themselves, “Are people around for the best interest of them or their winnings.” Much insecurity faced by a lottery can result in the lost of their true character. The lottery winner begins to abandoned their previous hobbies, job, and interests left to be known as the person who won the lottery. Their need to feel empowered is now effected resulting in their drive to regain their empowerment by any means