A lottery is a form of gambling in which participants pay for a chance to win a prize by matching numbers or symbols drawn randomly. The prize may be money, goods, services, or land. Some lotteries are conducted by state governments, while others are private or charitable enterprises. There are also special lottery games that award a variety of other prizes, including subsidized housing units and kindergarten placements.

Lotteries have a long history, with the first records dating back to the 15th century in the Low Countries. These were designed to raise funds for towns and town fortifications, or to help the poor. Since that time, they have become a common feature of many societies and a major source of revenue for public projects, such as roads, canals, bridges, hospitals, and schools.

The first requirement for a lottery is some means of recording the identity of the bettors and the amount of money staked. Often this is accomplished by writing the name on a ticket which is then deposited for later shuffling and selection. Computers are used for this purpose in modern times. Then there is a method of drawing, which combines all the tickets or counterfoils and selects winners from among them. After the cost of the lottery and a percentage for profits are deducted, the remainder is available for the prize money.

Those who play the lottery frequently are disproportionately lower-income, less educated, and nonwhite, and male. The messages that are given to these players are that they should feel good about themselves for playing, even though their chances of winning are very small.