Lottery is a competition based on chance in which numbered tickets are sold and prizes are given to the holders of numbers drawn at random. Prizes can range from a lump sum of money to units in a subsidized housing block or kindergarten placements at a prestigious public school. The term is also used for games of chance in which participants pay to participate. Modern examples include the selection of jury members by lottery, commercial promotions in which property or money is awarded to contestants who choose correctly from a list of names, and state-sponsored games in which players pay for the privilege of buying a ticket with numbers that are then drawn at random.

In the early colonial era, lotteries helped finance public and private projects. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, ran a lottery to raise money to build cannons to defend Philadelphia against the British. In the 18th century, many states held lotteries to raise funds for schools, roads, libraries, churches, canals, and bridges. George Washington sponsored a lottery to fund a road across the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Lotteries have a reputation for being benign. But their underbelly is that they dangle the promise of instant riches in an age of inequality and limited social mobility. And they do so at the expense of state revenues. Lotteries rely on two messages to attract people: one is that playing the lottery is fun and the other is that if you win, it’s because you did your civic duty by buying a ticket. The problem is that both are coded to obscure the regressivity of the system and the huge sums spent on tickets by people who could be saving for retirement or college tuition.