Lottery

Lottery

A lottery is a low-odds game in which tickets are drawn to win prizes. They can also be used in decision-making situations, such as sports team drafts or the allocation of scarce medical treatment.

History and origin of Lottery

The first recorded lotteries to offer tickets for sale with prizes in the form of money were held in the Low Countries in the 15th century, to raise money for town fortifications and to help the poor. Records dated 9 May 1445 at L’Ecluse, for instance, show a lottery of 4,304 tickets and total prize money of 1737 florins (worth about US$170,000 in 2014).

Financial Lotteries

While financial lotteries are controversial, they do generate significant revenue for the governments that sponsor them. Moreover, they can be a way to finance social programs and public projects.

Despite the low odds of winning, people continue to play lottery games. They buy tickets because they believe that there is a chance of winning large amounts of money.

They often choose a system of their own design, such as using numbers associated with certain life events or playing “hot” numbers that they have won more frequently. However, a player must realize that the odds of randomly selecting a winning combination are very low.

Whether someone decides to participate in a lottery can be explained by decision models based on expected utility maximization. The curvature of the utility function can be adjusted to capture risk-seeking behavior, and more general models based on other kinds of non-monetary gain can account for the purchase of lottery tickets.