The official lottery is a system of selling tickets with numbers and symbols that win prize money in a random drawing. Lotteries are common in some countries, and are regulated by law. The earliest known lotteries date from the fifteenth century, when towns used them to build town fortifications and help the poor. The practice spread from the Low Countries to England, where it became an important source of state income.

Lottery players may pay as much as twenty-five dollars per ticket, depending on the size of the jackpot. In the United States, most tickets are sold through private organizations called state-licensed “lottery pools.” State-licensed pools pool the money paid for tickets into a single fund that draws winning numbers and pays out prizes. Pools are also used to sell other types of gambling games such as scratch-off tickets.

In the early twentieth century, when the nation was engulfed in a tax revolt, politicians eager to maintain public services without hiking taxes discovered that lotteries could do the trick. Lottery opponents hailed from all parts of the political spectrum and from all walks of life, but their chief argument was that allowing state governments to raise money through gambling violated moral norms.

In the end, the sway of such objections was outweighed by state leaders’ aversion to raising taxes. The result was that by 1964, thirteen states had approved lotteries. Many others did so in the years that followed, and the trend was reinforced by the rise of multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions.