A lottery is an arrangement for the allocation of prizes, such as money or goods, by chance. Modern lotteries involve paying a small amount to enter for the chance to win a prize, but the word is also used more generally to describe any process in which someone has a small probability of success. The Old Testament instructed Moses to divide land by lottery, and Roman emperors gave away property by the drawing of lots. In colonial America, lottery games helped finance many early public works projects, including paving streets and building churches. George Washington even sponsored a lottery to raise money to build a road across the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The modern game of lottery was first recorded in the Low Countries in the 15th century. Town records from Ghent, Utrecht and Bruges indicate that public lotteries were used to raise money for town fortifications and to help poor people. The Dutch state-owned Staatsloterij is the oldest still running lottery (1726).
You can play the lottery by purchasing tickets in a machine, choosing a sequence of numbers or letting the computer pick random numbers for you. Some states have online or radio programs to allow people to buy tickets in advance. In the United States, the federal government regulates state-sponsored lotteries.
The prize amounts for a lottery vary, but the jackpots are often very large. A lottery winner may choose to receive the prize in a lump sum or as a series of payments over time. A lump-sum payment will have a lower value than the headline prize because of taxes.