A lottery is a game of chance that involves paying for the opportunity to win a prize, which may be cash or goods. There are many types of lotteries, including those that give away kindergarten admission, a coveted apartment in a crowded housing block, or a vaccine for a contagious disease. In the United States, state governments operate public lotteries that raise billions of dollars a year and contribute to public service programs. Some people play lotteries for fun while others believe that winning the lottery is their ticket to a better life.

The basic elements of all lotteries are the purchase of tickets, some way to record the identities and amounts staked by each bettor, and some method of selecting winners. The latter often takes the form of a pool or collection of tickets and their counterfoils from which winning numbers or symbols are extracted. In modern times, computers have increasingly replaced mechanical devices for mixing and shuffling the tickets.

The first recorded lotteries were in the Low Countries, where towns sold tickets for a variety of purposes, including building town fortifications and helping the poor. By the fourteenth century, the practice was widespread in England. It was also a popular way to raise money for wars and to establish royalties for authors. In the nineteen-sixties, lottery profits grew rapidly while state governments were struggling to balance budgets. Raising taxes or cutting services was unpopular, and so state legislatures turned to the lottery as a source of revenue.