A lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn for a prize. While some governments outlaw the practice, others endorse it and organize state- or nationally-run lotteries. These lotteries take in money from ticket purchases and then subtract costs (such as prize money, promotion, organizing, and so forth) before distributing the remainder to winners. Ticket sales are often influenced by the size of the prizes offered, but it is not uncommon for participants to demand that organizers balance the offering of large prizes with the availability of smaller ones.

Lotteries have a long history in the United States, dating back to colonial-era events such as the fundraising of the Virginia Company. In the immediate post-World War II period, many states adopted them because they hoped to increase their array of services without imposing especially onerous taxes on working families.

New Hampshire launched the modern era of state lotteries in 1964, and inspired by that success, 12 additional states began their own in the 1970s. These were states with large social safety nets and that had been accustomed to collecting substantial revenue through other forms of taxation.

In all state lotteries, players purchase a set of numbers on a playslip that is submitted to a drawing for the chance to win a prize. In some modern games, the player can also choose to let the computer randomly select a group of numbers instead, and in those cases, there is usually a box on the playslip to mark that indicates that the player has accepted the computer’s choices.