The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention…It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant…the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons.
– George Orwell
1984. Part 1, Chapter 8. The Big Brother Lottery scam, in which the financially poor proles are preyed upon.