A lottery is a government-sponsored game where participants purchase tickets with numbers that are drawn at random to determine winners. The prizes are usually large amounts of money. Lotteries have a long history and have been used to finance many projects, including the building of the Great Wall of China and supplying cannons for the defense of Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. They have also been criticized as a hidden tax. Critics argue that even when lottery proceeds are earmarked for a specific program, such as public education, the legislature still reduces its appropriations to the programs by the same amount as it uses the lottery revenues.

Most modern lotteries use a system that records the identities of bettors, the amount they stake on each ticket, and the number(s) or other symbols on which they are betting. This is generally done by having the bettor write his name and/or other information on a ticket that is then deposited for subsequent shuffling and possible selection in the drawing. After all expenses and profits for the lottery promoter have been deducted, the remaining amount is awarded as prizes.

While it is common for the prizes offered by a lottery to be much lower than the amount of money paid in by bettors, some people do win. This is one reason why governments guard their lotteries jealously from private operators. Many of the same issues that afflict private gambling operations are also present in state lotteries, including the fact that the majority of players and revenues come from middle-income neighborhoods, while the poor participate at levels disproportionately lower than their percentage of the population.