A gambling game in which players purchase numbered tickets and win prizes if their numbers match those drawn at random. Many governments regulate lotteries.
The drawing of lots to determine ownership or other rights is recorded in many ancient documents, including the Bible. It became common in Europe in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In colonial America, lotteries were used to raise money for towns, wars, colleges, and public-works projects.
Lottery players often see their purchases as low-risk investments. They pay only a dollar or two and could wind up with hundreds of millions, but the odds are slim. This is the defining feature of lotteries—as opposed to other forms of gambling, which have risk-to-reward ratios that are much more favorable to the gambler. Lottery playing as a habit can also cost consumers billions in foregone savings that they could have put into things like retirement or college tuition.
A lottery is any contest whose results depend on chance, such as the selection of students in a school district or winners of a sports draft. It can also refer to a situation that depends on luck, such as finding true love or being hit by lightning. The term has been popularized by the large jackpots of state-sponsored games and their associated media coverage.