That's the way they do things. Everyone from age 12-18 has their name on slips...every year, your name goes in more. If you sign up for tesserae, it goes in more. And once a year, they pull one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts. Those twenty-four go into an arena and fight until there's only one left standing. It's the Capitol's way of reminding us that they're always in control and we will always pay for the sins of our fathers.