In the United States, a lottery is a state-regulated game that offers a chance to win money or other prizes. The winners are selected by drawing a number or other symbol from a pool of tickets. The games are popular and help fund education, veteran’s benefits and other services without raising taxes. State lotteries typically have many different games, including daily instant-win scratch-off games and games where players pick the correct numbers. New Hampshire launched the first modern state lottery in 1964, inspired by its successful history with gambling. By the mid-1970s, nearly every state had a lottery.

Jackson’s story opens in a bucolic village square on an unspecified day in an unnamed year. Children recently on summer break are the first to assemble, followed by adult men and then women. They display the stereotypical normalcy of small-town life, warmly gossiping and discussing their work.

After everyone has assembled, Mr. Summers calls for the opening of the slips, and a general sigh is heard when little Dave’s paper shows up blank. Nancy’s and Bill’s papers also contain black spots, while Tessie’s has a greenish mark on it, suggesting she is the winner. The villagers begin to hurl stones at her, and she pleads with them to stop. The narrator notes that the behavior is similar to that of a society that scapegoats someone to make it feel safe to act aggressively and dangerously. In fact, the scapegoat is a woman in this patriarchal culture because women and minority groups are seen as “other.” In his book on scapegoating, Robert D. Kiesler argues that these types of cultures are rooted in a deep distrust of women and minorities, a distrust rooted in their own history of abuses at the hands of male-dominated societies.