A lottery is an arrangement in which prizes are allocated by chance. The casting of lots for a decision or for material gain has a long record in human history, including several instances in the Bible. Lotteries are a form of gambling that pays participants for the privilege of participating. They are commonplace in sports and also dish out a variety of other prizes to paying participants, including units in subsidized housing blocks or kindergarten placements. They can even dish out property and slaves.
State governments adopt lotteries in part because they believe that the proceeds will help fund public goods. They do not rely on this argument to win general public approval, however. Lottery revenues swell rapidly after the initial introduction of games, but eventually decline or level off, as players grow bored with the selection of games and the odds of winning. Lotteries thus face an ongoing challenge to find new ways to maintain or increase revenues.
Historically, the main message that state lottery commissions have tried to deliver is that playing the lottery is fun. They have also emphasized that people who play the lottery are not just wasting money, but are actually contributing to the public good by voluntarily spending their own money to support education and other public goods. This reframes the lottery as a kind of charity, obscures its regressive nature, and helps to sustain the popularity of lotteries among convenience store owners, who are major suppliers of tickets; politicians (who benefit from heavy contributions to their campaigns by lottery suppliers); and teachers, who rely on state lotto proceeds to supplement their salaries.