A state-sponsored contest offering money or other prizes to winners picked at random, sometimes as a way of raising funds for the government or a charity. Lotteries are also popular with private companies as a means of encouraging customer loyalty and attracting new customers.

Generally, lottery games involve paying a small sum of money for a chance to win a larger prize. Historically, the prizes have been money and other valuable items, but nowadays, many states sell lottery tickets online as well. There are several types of lottery games: instant-win scratch-off tickets, daily lotteries and games where you must pick the correct numbers from a set of balls, typically numbered 1 to 50.

The popularity of state-sponsored lotteries has grown in recent years, partly because of growing income inequality and a sense that it is possible to become rich quickly through luck or hard work. Moreover, anti-tax movements have led lawmakers to seek alternatives to raising taxes. Financial lotteries are often easier to regulate than taxes, and the high amounts of cash offered by some jackpots appeal to consumers of all socioeconomic classes.

The word lottery derives from the Latin sortilegij, meaning ‘casting of lots’, and it can be used in any competition whose outcome depends mainly on chance. There are even a few cases where the winners of lottery games are chosen by drawing lots in civil or political affairs, such as when schools choose students. However, federal statutes prohibit mailing or transporting in interstate commerce promotional materials for lotteries.