Lottery is a game where numbers are drawn and prizes are awarded based on chance. The word “lottery” dates from the Middle Dutch Loterie, which itself is probably a calque on Middle French loterie (“drawing lots”). Making decisions and determining fates by casting lots has a long record in human history—including several instances in the Bible. But lottery games that dish out cash prizes are considerably more recent, with the first recorded public lotteries taking place in the Low Countries during the 15th century to raise funds for town fortifications and to help the poor.

In colonial-era America, lotteries were used to raise money for everything from paving streets and building roads to constructing buildings at Harvard and Yale. Benjamin Franklin even sponsored a lottery to raise money to purchase cannons for Philadelphia in the American Revolution. George Washington, however, did not support lotteries, which he considered to be a form of hidden tax.

Today, state-run lotteries take many forms: traditional raffles where tickets are sold for future drawings; instant games like scratch-off tickets; and draw-based games, such as Powerball. In the United States, most states and Washington, DC offer a lottery. Most state lotteries begin with a small number of relatively simple games and then, as revenues expand, progressively introduce new ones to keep revenues growing.

People buy a ticket with a number or numbers on it, and, when the drawing is held, the winning ticket will be selected randomly by a computer. If you want to win a lottery, the best strategy is to let a computer pick your numbers. If you prefer to choose your own, avoid numbers that have a pattern. For example, don’t pick birthdays or other personal numbers, such as home addresses or social security numbers, because those have too much of a random component to them.