Lottery is a competition in which people try to win money by chance, most often by purchasing numbered tickets. Many governments organize lotteries, and the prizes are used to support various public uses, such as education, health care, public welfare, and infrastructure. People also play private lotteries to raise money for personal use. The word “lottery” comes from the Dutch noun lot, which means “fate.” The casting of lots to make decisions and determine fates has a long record in human history, including several instances in the Bible, but the use of lotteries for material gain is much more recent. The first recorded lottery to distribute prize money was held in the Low Countries in the 15th century to raise funds for town repairs and for helping the poor.

A common element of all lotteries is the drawing, a procedure for selecting winners. In the early days of the lottery, this was usually a mechanical process of thoroughly mixing the pool of tickets or their counterfoils and then extracting winners by random selection. In modern times, computer technology is used for this purpose.

A third element is some way of recording the identities of bettors and their stakes. This can be done in a number of ways, but is often accomplished by having the bettor write his or her name on a ticket that is then deposited with the lottery organization for shuffling and subsequent identification as a winner.