A lottery is a game of chance in which numbers are drawn to determine the winner of a prize. Prizes may vary, but are typically cash or goods. Lotteries are most often state-run, but some are private. A lottery is different from gambling because prizes are allocated in accordance with an arbitrary process rather than by skill or merit. The word “lottery” is thought to come from the Latin loteria, derived from the Greek lotos, meaning “fate.” The first recorded lotteries were conducted in the Low Countries in the 15th century to raise money for town fortifications and the poor.
The modern version of the lottery has many of the same basic elements. Each bettor writes his name and the number(s) he chooses on a ticket, which is then deposited with the lottery organization for later shuffling and possible selection in the drawing. Most modern lotteries also allow bettor to mark a box or section on their playslip to indicate that they will accept whatever numbers are selected by the computer.
The numbers chosen in a lottery drawing are usually random, but players tend to select numbers based on personal or symbolic associations. For example, people often pick their birthdays or other significant dates. This can be a bad strategy, because these numbers are likely to appear more frequently than other numbers in the range of 1 to 31. As a result, they are more likely to be shared by multiple winners than non-personal numbers.