A lottery is a game of chance in which numbers are drawn to determine winners. Prizes are usually cash, but they can also be goods or services. Lotteries are an important source of revenue for governments and are popular among citizens. They can even be used to distribute limited resources, such as sports team drafts or medical treatment.

The word “lottery” comes from the Dutch noun lot, meaning fate or fortune. The earliest recorded lotteries were run in the Low Countries in the fourteen-hundreds, and they were used to build town fortifications and help the poor. The practice spread to England, where Queen Elizabeth I chartered the first national lottery in 1567, dedicating its profits to “reparation of the Havens and Strength of the Realme.” Tickets were ten shillings—a steep price even back then—and each ticket served as a get-out-of-jail card, providing immunity from prosecution for almost any crime except murder, piracy, and treason.

As time passed, the lottery evolved into a major source of state revenue, with the proceeds earmarked for public services. In the late nineteenth century, as state governments began to strain under the weight of a growing population and inflation, these funds proved crucial in keeping them solvent. But lottery advocates were forced to rework their sales pitch. No longer able to argue that the games would float most of a state’s budget, they began arguing that the proceeds could cover a single line item—invariably a government service that was popular and nonpartisan—and that this service might be better than a tax increase or cuts to education or elder care.

To make a lottery work, a number of requirements must be met. The first is a mechanism for recording the identities and amounts staked by bettors. This may take the form of a written record, or it might be a numbered receipt that is deposited with the lottery organization to be reshuffled and possibly selected for inclusion in the draw. The next step is to impose a rules set that dictates the frequency and size of prizes. Normally, a percentage of the total pool is deducted for costs and profits, leaving the rest to be awarded to the winners.

Lastly, the prizes must be attractive enough to attract potential bettors. Super-sized jackpots do the trick, but they must be reasonably frequent to sustain interest and ticket sales. That’s why so many lotteries offer a variety of smaller prizes—it’s a way to keep people coming back for more chances at the big one.

But lottery prizes have also gotten tangled up in history’s dark side, with early American presidents like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton embracing them as a painless alternative to taxes. And, of course, the lottery has a long and complicated history of tangled connections with slavery: George Washington managed a Virginia-based lottery that offered human beings as prizes, and Denmark Vesey won a South Carolina lottery and went on to foment a slave rebellion.