The lottery is a method of raising funds for a government, charity, or other cause by selling tickets whose numbers are drawn at random to determine winners. The casting of lots for decisions and fates has a long history (including several cases in the Bible), and the lottery’s modern form dates back to the 16th century. The modern state lottery is an enormously popular enterprise, with over 60% of adults reporting that they play at least once a year. It is also a hugely profitable one, generating over $53.6 billion in revenue for its states and enticing people from neighboring states to cross state lines to participate.
In the United States, all state lotteries are operated as monopolies by their state governments; the profits from these monopoly operations are used exclusively for government purposes. Lotteries have broad public support, but critics often focus on particular features of their operations. These include the problems of compulsive gamblers and regressive impacts on lower-income individuals, as well as questions of public policy.
Early lottery advocates were able to sell the lottery as a silver bullet for balancing state budgets by claiming that it would finance a specific line item, invariably some sort of popular, nonpartisan service—often education, but sometimes elder care or aid for veterans. After these figures proved misleading, legalization advocates began to narrow their pitch, arguing that lottery revenues would cover only a small percentage of a state’s budget and thus help balance the books without increasing taxes.