A game in which tickets are drawn by chance for prizes ranging from cash to goods and services. It is a form of gambling that is not subject to the same legal restrictions as horse racing, although many states have strict licensing requirements for lottery operators and operators must pay hefty tax rates. Lottery has also become a popular way for charitable organizations to raise money.

The word “lottery” is probably derived from the Middle Dutch noun lot, meaning fate or fortune, which may be a calque of the Middle French verb loterie, meaning the action of drawing lots (thus the Oxford English Dictionary). During the Renaissance, Italian artists began to use lotteries to draw the winners of art competitions. By the end of the century, European lotteries were booming.

In the United States, state lotteries are hugely popular: Americans spend an estimated $100 billion per year on tickets. Lottery advertising is aimed largely at the middle class, and it promotes the idea that winning the lottery can solve financial problems, especially for those who are unemployed or in poverty.

Lotteries are also a source of painless revenue for state governments. When a new lottery is introduced, revenues expand rapidly; after a few years, however, they begin to level off and even decline. To keep revenues up, the lottery must continually introduce new games.

The public, meanwhile, becomes bored with the existing games and starts to lose interest in them. Consequently, the percentage of people playing the lottery tends to decrease with income, and a greater proportion of poor people play than middle-class or wealthy people do.