The lottery is a game of chance in which participants pay an entry fee for the opportunity to win a prize, usually money. Most states have state-run lotteries, and a number of privately run games are also available. Most states offer a variety of games, including traditional raffles in which the public buys tickets for a future drawing (or “draw”), instant-win scratch-off games, and daily games that involve picking numbers or symbols.
The earliest known lotteries were in the Low Countries, where town records from the fifteenth century show that various towns held public lotteries to raise funds for building wall and town fortifications as well as charity for the poor. By the seventeenth century, these were a common and painless form of taxation in Europe, and by the nineteenth century they had become a widespread feature of American life.
In general, people play lotteries when the expected utility of a monetary prize outweighs the disutility of paying the ticket price. This is not always the case, however; for some individuals, the entertainment value or other non-monetary benefits of playing a lottery may outweigh the cost.
In addition to providing a source of revenue for state governments, lotteries also cultivate specific constituencies for themselves: convenience store operators (whose sales tend to be boosted by the publicity surrounding the games); suppliers of goods and services to the lottery (heavy contributions by these companies to state political campaigns are often reported); teachers (in those states where lottery revenues are earmarked for education); and, in the modern era, New Hampshire’s tax-averse legislature (which rapidly became accustomed to the extra money flowing into its coffers).