A lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn for a prize. Prizes may be money or goods. The term is also applied to decisions made by chance, such as the drawing of jurors for a trial or the selection of military keluaran hk conscripts. Lotteries may be legal or illegal, depending on the jurisdiction. Modern lottery games are often governed by state laws and are designed to raise funds for public benefit. Examples of public lotteries include the Powerball and Mega Millions. Private lotteries are often organized by businesses to reward customers or employees.

In the 15th century, a number of towns in the Low Countries held public lotteries to raise money for town fortifications and to aid the poor. These are the first recorded lotteries to distribute prizes in the form of money, although the casting of lots for decision making has a much longer record. The earliest known drawing was held in Rome under the Emperor Augustus for municipal repairs, and the first European public lottery to award money took place in 1466 at Bruges in what is now Belgium.

The popularity of the lottery has remained relatively stable since New Hampshire pioneered the modern era in 1964. Despite its relatively high cost, the lottery attracts broad and consistent support because of its perceived value as a source of “painless” revenue: voters look at the lottery as a way to spend their own money voluntarily to benefit the community, and politicians look at it as a way to avoid raising taxes.