A lottery is a process that allocates prizes by chance. This can be anything from kindergarten placements to units in a subsidized housing block to a vaccine for a rapidly spreading virus. The two most popular examples are those that dish out cash prizes to paying participants and those that occur in sport.
One element common to all lotteries is some means of recording the identities and amounts staked by individual bettors. The most obvious method is to write each bettors’ name on a ticket that is then deposited with the lottery organization for shuffling and selection in the drawing. More sophisticated lotteries employ computers to record the selections made on each playslip and to keep track of the total amount staked.
Another common feature of all lotteries is the promotion and distribution of tickets and information to potential bettors. The success of this promotional effort is critical to generating sufficient revenues. To this end, most state lotteries rely heavily on television and radio advertising and have created extensive promotional staffs.
State lotteries tend to evolve along a fairly predictable path: they establish a monopoly for themselves; hire an agency or public corporation to run them; start with a modest number of relatively simple games; and, driven by the need to generate additional revenue, gradually expand their offerings. The result is that few, if any, state lotteries have any cohesive “lottery policy.” In this sense, they are classic examples of public policies being shaped piecemeal and incrementally, with the general welfare taken into consideration only intermittently and in the most casual manner.