Lottery is a game in which participants have an opportunity to win money or other goods by drawing lots. The value of the prize is often fixed before the lottery begins, but prizes can also be awarded by chance after the draw. Prizes are usually cash or merchandise, and the amount of prize money is calculated after expenses such as profits for the promoter and costs of promotion have been deducted from the total pool of funds.

The practice of making decisions and determining fates by casting lots has a long record dating back to ancient times, including dozens of biblical examples. The lottery is a form of gambling, however, and the modern state-sponsored version has emerged in response to public demands for an easy, painless source of tax revenue. The primary argument in favor of state lotteries is that the proceeds are spent on a specific public good, such as education, which wins broad public support even in times of economic stress.

Lotteries have become increasingly popular in the United States since the eighteenth century, where they played a vital role in funding the infrastructure of the young nation. Lotteries allowed the country to build roads, jails, and hospitals and to establish Harvard and Yale. Even such famous figures as thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin sponsored private lotteries, with Jefferson seeking to retire his debts and Franklin raising funds for cannons for Philadelphia. In the era of rapid growth for American industry, it was not uncommon to find states relying on the income from lotteries for up to a third of their revenue.