A game of chance in which numbered tickets are sold and prizes, usually cash or merchandise, are awarded to those whose numbers are drawn at random. Lotteries are often run by states or other organizations as a means of raising funds.
The modern era of state-sponsored lotteries began with New Hampshire’s adoption of one in 1964, and almost every state has now introduced its own. Despite a wide variety of arguments both for and against their introduction, the resulting lotteries have followed remarkably similar patterns: a state creates a monopoly for itself by legitimizing it in its own laws; appoints a state agency or public corporation to run the lottery (instead of licensing a private firm in return for a cut of the profits); begins operations with a modest number of relatively simple games; and then, due to constant pressure to raise revenues, progressively expands its offerings of new games.
Regardless of the specifics of the lotteries that have been instituted, their success has relied on their ability to generate broad and sustained popular support. In the United States, for example, lottery revenues have been used to fund a wide range of state projects, from bridges and roads to hospitals and libraries. They have also boosted the incomes of many individual citizens, providing them with substantial additional sums of money with which to pay for their daily needs.
A second element common to all lotteries is a mechanism for collecting and pooling the money staked by bettors. Depending on the type of lottery, this may take the form of a pool or collection of tickets or counterfoils from which winners are selected; a system for shuffling the tickets or symbols; or, most recently, the use of computers to randomly select winning numbers.
Lottery advocates argue that the benefits of such expenditures outweigh the costs, and that lottery proceeds are not as regressive as tax increases or cuts in other programs. They have also argued that lotteries are more acceptable than other methods of raising state revenue because they allow citizens to voluntarily spend their own money for the public good.
Criticisms of the lottery have focused on the ways in which it is promoted and run as a business with an overriding focus on maximizing revenues; on questions about the extent to which it targets poorer individuals and problem gamblers; on allegations that it promotes addiction; and on concerns about its overall impact on state finances and on other aspects of public policy. Whether these criticisms are valid remains to be seen. However, they have shifted the debate away from the question of whether a state should adopt a lottery to the extent that it is now a prominent feature of contemporary American life.