A lottery is a game in which players pay for tickets and their chances of winning depend on chance, rather than skill or effort. It can be used to fill positions in a sports team among equally competing athletes or to allocate units in a subsidized housing block, for example. It can also be used to dish out money or prizes in the form of cash or goods.

The earliest lotteries were probably private, with people buying tickets in exchange for food, drinks and other products. They can still be found today, especially in rural areas, where there are few other outlets for income. Some states have established state-run lotteries. Others have chosen to license privately run games, but the basic arrangement remains the same: public officials establish a state-owned monopoly; create a publicly owned agency or corporation; begin operations with a modest number of relatively simple games; and, faced with pressure for additional revenues, gradually expand the offering by adding new games.

As a result, most states offer more than twenty-four different games, and many of them produce large profits each year. The revenue from lotteries is often used for a variety of purposes, such as education, public works and charitable activities.

Although defenders of lotteries argue that they promote educational opportunities and help the poor, critics charge that they do little more than fleece taxpayers. The bulk of lottery players and revenue is drawn from middle-income neighborhoods, while the poor participate at levels far lower than their proportion of the population. In addition, much lottery advertising is deceptive, with many claiming that the odds of winning are extremely favorable and inflating the value of money won (which, in fact, must be paid in a series of equal annual installments over 20 years, with inflation and taxes dramatically eroding the present value).