Lottery is a form of gambling in which numbered tickets are sold and prizes given to those who match numbers drawn at random. It is a popular form of fundraising and sometimes a source of controversy. In the past, it was often used to finance prestigious projects such as colleges, churches, canals, and roads. Today, Americans spend about $80 billion a year on lotteries.

The basic elements of a lottery are a mechanism for recording the identities and amounts staked by bettors, a method for selecting the winners, and a pool from which the prizes are drawn. The pool is usually a percentage of the total amount staked, with some of this percentage deducted for costs of organizing and promoting the lottery and a portion of it allocated to profits or revenues for the state or sponsor. Depending on the prize structure, some of the pool may be returned to bettors in the form of small prizes, while others will go toward a grand jackpot.

In the long run, a lottery can be expected to generate higher than average utility if the prizes are large enough to drive ticket sales and if there is a sufficient balance between the odds of winning and the number of people playing. If the prizes are too small or the odds too high, ticket sales will decline. In addition, the demographics of the population who play are a critical factor. The players tend to be disproportionately lower-income, less educated, and nonwhite.