Lottery is a type of gambling in which people buy numbered tickets for a chance to win a prize. The prizes can be cash or goods. The chances of winning depend on how many tickets are sold and the number of winners. Modern lotteries are organized by state and sometimes local governments to raise money for public purposes, including education. They are usually regulated by law and often advertised on television, radio, and the Internet. A person who wins a lottery may be required to pay taxes on the prize.
The word lottery is probably derived from the Dutch noun lot meaning fate, or the practice of drawing lots to determine distribution of property, as in the Old Testament instructions for distributing land among the tribes and in the Saturnalian feasts of Nero and Augustus that gave away slaves and other objects by lot. It is also a name for any game in which the prize depends on chance, such as the stock market.
Some lotteries offer only one large prize, and others have several smaller prizes, with the value of the biggest prize varying depending on how many tickets are sold. Some lotteries give a fixed amount of money for each ticket; these are commonly called prize pools. Other lotteries have a fixed percentage of total receipts as the prize. These are referred to as revenue lotteries and are more common in countries with lower incomes, where the prize can be a significant portion of a person’s earnings.