Lottery is a form of gambling that involves drawing numbers at random. Some governments outlaw the practice while others endorse it and organize state and national lotteries. The odds of winning are relatively high, and there are millions of people who play the lottery every day. It is a popular source of revenue for many governments and has become a booming industry.

The first recorded lotteries with money prizes were held in the Low Countries during the fifteenth century. The goal of these public lotteries was to raise money for the poor and for public works. People quickly discovered that lotteries were a relatively painless way to raise money. Ghent, for example, held a public lottery during Saturnalian revels. The earliest known record of a lottery in the Netherlands was a document from 1445, which refers to a lottery in which 4304 tickets were sold. The prize was 1737 florins, which is roughly US$170,000 today.

Lotteries were widely used in colonial America to finance public projects. Between 1744 and 1776, over two hundred lotteries were held in the United States. The money raised from these lotteries helped to build roads, libraries, colleges, canals, bridges, and schools. Lotteries also financed the creation of universities like Princeton and Columbia in the 1740s and the University of Pennsylvania in 1755. In addition, several colonies used lotteries to raise funds during the French and Indian Wars. In 1758, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts used a lottery to raise funds for an expedition against Canada.