Lottery is a game where participants pay for tickets and then hope to win a prize, typically money. State lotteries usually offer a large number of small prizes and a single, much larger prize. The prizes are often predetermined, and costs and profits for the lottery promoter and taxes or other revenues are deducted from the total pool. This results in a game that has a low profit margin and high regressivity.

The word “lottery” comes from the Middle Dutch verb loten, meaning “to draw lots” (thus the English language definition). Lotteries were widely used in Europe during the 1500s as a way to distribute property, slaves and other assets. In the United States, Benjamin Franklin sponsored a lottery in 1776 to raise funds for cannons for Philadelphia’s defense during the American Revolution and private lotteries flourished in the 1800s.

In the short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson describes a small village in which people blindly follow tradition and hold annual lottery drawings. Jackson developed this theme to illustrate the grotesque prejudice hidden in ordinary life.

In the early years of modern state lotteries, their revenues rose dramatically and then leveled off before declining. This caused the state agencies to introduce new games in an attempt to maintain or increase revenues. In general, state lotteries evolve piecemeal with little or no overall policy direction. Public officials inherit policies and a dependence on revenues that they can do little to control.