A competition based on chance, in which numbered tickets are sold and prizes are awarded to the holders of those numbers. It is a common method of raising money for public and charitable purposes.
The use of lotteries to determine fates and to award material goods has a long history (it is mentioned in the Bible), but the modern lottery emerged in Europe in the 17th century. In colonial America, it played a significant role in financing private and public ventures such as roads, canals, bridges, and churches. Lotteries also helped to finance the founding of Yale and Columbia Universities.
In nearly every state that has introduced a lottery, it has followed a very similar pattern: the legislature legislates a monopoly for the lottery; establishes a public agency to run it; begins operations with a small number of relatively simple games; and then, under pressure to increase revenues, progressively expands its offerings. Eventually, a state lottery may have more than 100 games.
Lottery games are a classic example of the way that policy decisions are made in a democracy – in a fragmented and incremental manner, and with little overall overview or control. While the emergence of lottery in a given state is a highly visible and dramatic event, its actual operation is often obscured by competing interests, bureaucratic structures, and skewed incentives. The result is that a state lottery evolves without a clear policy framework, and public officials are subject to pressures that they cannot control.