The Lottery

Lotteries survive on constant innovation by their operators in the games. But does the Lottery Commission miss what is fundamentally amiss? As Borges wrote in the "The Lottery in Babylon":

" [t]he lottery in Babylon was a game of plebian character . . . barbers sold, in exchange for copper coins, squares of bone or of parchment adorned with symbols. In broad daylight a drawing took place. Those who won received silver coins without any other test of luck. . . . [N]aturally these "lotteries" failed. Their moral virtue was nil. They were not directed at all of man's faculties, but only at hope. In the face of public indifference, the merchants who founded these venel lotteries began to lose money. Someone tried a reform: The interpolation of a few unfavorable tickets in the list of favorable numbers. By means of this reform, the buyers of numbered squares ran the double risk of winning a sum and of paying a fine . . . [T]his slight danger . . . awoke, as is natural, the interest of the public. The Babylonians threw themselves into the game."
From the Modern Library translation in "Labyrinths", Jorge Luis Borges, page 31.