Lottery is a way for people to win prizes by chance, usually through buying tickets. Lottery winners can choose to receive their prize money in a lump sum or as an annuity, or both.

The earliest recorded lotteries were in the Low Countries, where towns held public games to raise funds for town fortifications and to help the poor. The word lotteries is probably derived from the Middle Dutch noun lot meaning fate or luck, but its exact origin is unknown. It became a common term for lottery-like arrangements in England after the first state-sponsored lotteries were established there in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

In the United States, states began introducing lotteries in the 1960s as a way to raise money for state projects without increasing taxes. They grew quickly in the Northeast, where state governments were struggling to expand their social safety nets and where large populations of Catholics were generally tolerant of gambling activities.

In 2023, Americans spent $57 billion on lottery tickets, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. A portion of that total goes to the prize pool, and the rest gets divvied up between administrative and vendor costs and toward whatever projects each state designates. Some states allocate a percentage of lottery revenue to education, while others dedicate it to public health, parks, and other community needs. In general, lottery players tend to be lower-income, less educated, and more male than the overall population.