The lottery is a form of gambling run by state governments. People buy tickets with numbers in order to win a prize ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of millions of dollars. People can choose their own numbers or use a quick pick option where the ticket machine selects numbers for them. In the United States, lotteries are regulated by federal and state laws. The history of lotteries dates back to the 15th century, when towns held public lotteries in the Low Countries to raise funds for town fortifications and to help the poor.

Lottery revenues expand dramatically after their introduction and then level off or even decline. In order to keep revenues up, lotteries introduce new games and heavily promote them through advertising. Lottery officials have a difficult task: they have to balance the need to grow revenue with an obligation to educate the public about the risks of gambling.

Despite the high profile examples of fraud and mismanagement, the majority of state-sponsored lotteries are legitimate operations. However, the industry is rife with distortions and a lack of transparency. Often, lottery revenues are used for non-lottery purposes and the general welfare is not well served by the industry as it is now structured. State officials have little or no control over the development of state lotteries because policy decisions are made piecemeal and incrementally, with little or no overall overview. This has led to a situation where many state officials are dependent on a type of gambling that they can not regulate, and pressures exist to increase lottery revenues.