Lottery is a popular way of raising money for state governments and charities by selling tickets that have numbers on them. People who have the winning numbers are awarded prizes. This is a form of gambling, and there are concerns about its addictive nature. But there are also concerns about the fact that lottery revenue disproportionately comes from low-income people and minorities, who tend to have lower housing standards and higher rates of addiction to gambling.
The first recorded lotteries were held in the Low Countries in the 15th century, when towns held public lotteries to raise funds for building walls and town fortifications. These were hailed as a painless alternative to raising taxes, and they proved very popular with the general public.
Today, 44 states and the District of Columbia run lotteries, as shown in Figure 7.1. Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Utah do not; the absence of lotteries in these states is due to religious or cultural concerns, while for some reason, Nevada is left out (possibly because it’s a gambling mecca).
All lotteries involve some sort of drawing to determine winners, which may be a simple procedure such as shaking or tossing, or it may be a complex computer-based system. The most important aspect of the lottery is the randomness of the drawing, which ensures that each ticket has an equal chance of winning. Computers are often used in the drawing process because of their ability to store information about many tickets and generate random numbers, which helps prevent tampering.