A lottery is a game in which people buy tickets for a chance to win a prize, such as money or goods. Ticket prices and prizes vary by lottery, but the result of each drawing depends entirely on chance and is not affected by skill. People who play the lottery are said to be gambling. A lottery is sometimes referred to as a “voluntary tax.” Many state lotteries are run by private promoters, while others are government-sponsored. Historically, governments have used lotteries as a way to raise money for public goods and services.
For example, Benjamin Franklin ran a lottery to fund a militia to defend Philadelphia during the American Revolution. John Hancock ran one to build Boston’s Faneuil Hall, and George Washington ran a lottery to construct a road over a mountain pass in Virginia. Today, state-sponsored lotteries are common in the United States and Europe. The largest publicly organized lottery in the world is the Staatsloterij of the Netherlands, which dates from 1726. Private lotteries are also popular and widely used in many countries to raise money for a wide variety of purposes.
Some people simply like to gamble, and there’s an inextricable human impulse to try to get lucky. But the bigger issue with lotteries is that they’re dangling the promise of instant wealth in an age of inequality and limited social mobility. For many low-income Americans, buying a lottery ticket is an investment in hope—irrational and mathematically impossible though it may be.
