Lottery is a form of gambling that involves picking numbers for a chance to win a prize. State governments typically control and oversee lotteries. In the United States, most states offer some kind of lottery game. Some are simple, such as daily scratch-off games. Others involve picking winning numbers for a drawing that may be weeks or months in the future. The prizes for winning the larger multi-state games can be hundreds of millions of dollars. Revenues typically expand dramatically after a lottery first comes on the market, then level off and sometimes decline. This leads to a constant need for new games to entice people to play.

Lotteries have been criticized for expanding gambling behavior, being a regressive tax on low-income populations, and encouraging addictive gambling habits. But proponents argue that the revenue from lotteries is a source of “painless” tax revenue and are a useful tool for funding state programs.

In the United States, a large percentage of the winnings from lottery games are returned to the participating state governments. This money is used for things like commissions paid to lottery retailers, the overhead costs of running the lottery system itself, and supporting infrastructure projects like roadwork, bridgework, police force, and education. Some states also use some of the funds to support groups for gambling addiction and recovery.

A record of the first state-sponsored lotteries in Europe dates back to the 15th century. The name “lottery” is probably derived from the Dutch word for “fate” or “chance,” and it is believed to be a calque on Middle French loterie, which itself is thought to have come from the Latin sortilegij, meaning “casting of lots.” Lotteries continued to grow in popularity in the centuries that followed, with many towns using them to raise money for walls and town fortifications.