A lottery is an arrangement by which one or more prizes (typically money) are allocated to ticket holders by chance. It is contrasted with games of skill, such as sports or card games, where the player must use a particular set of skills to succeed.
Throughout human history, casting lots to make decisions and determine fates has been a practice of considerable antiquity, as documented in several instances in the Bible. The first recorded public lotteries to award prize money were held in the 15th century in Burgundy and Flanders, with towns raising funds for town fortifications or to aid the poor.
Most state lotteries have developed along similar lines: the government legislates a monopoly for itself; establishes a public agency to run the lottery (as opposed to licensing private firms in return for a share of revenues); begins operations with a modest number of relatively simple games; and, because of continuing pressure for higher revenues, progressively expands the offering. This evolution of state lotteries has made it difficult to develop a coherent policy on gambling or even lottery policies, and many critics argue that lotteries are at cross-purposes with the public interest.
People who purchase lottery tickets know the odds are long that they will win, but they play anyway because they enjoy the excitement and the fantasy of wealth. Such pleasures cannot be accounted for by decision models based on expected value maximization, and buying tickets is thus not a rational choice under any definition of probability theory.