A lottery is a game of chance in which winners are selected through a random drawing. There are both state-sponsored financial lotteries and non-financial lotteries, such as those that award a prize to people who have matched a series of numbers on their ticket. Lotteries are popular because they allow people to win large sums of money for a small investment. They also play a role in promoting gambling and influencing attitudes toward it.

The lottery is a major source of revenue for the federal and many state governments, but it has also generated controversy over its role as a tool of public policy. Some of the debates surrounding lotteries focus on specific features of operation, such as compulsive gamblers and alleged regressive effects on low-income groups. Others involve the more general question of whether lotteries are desirable and fair to society.

In modern state lotteries, there are two basic elements: a mechanism for recording the identities and stakes placed by bettors; and a mechanism for shuffling and selecting the winning tickets. For a bet to be valid, it must have been placed at the correct location and time. In most state lotteries, this is done by an organization of agents who sell tickets and collect the stakes from bettors, passing them up to the lottery headquarters until they are “banked.”

The narrator of The Lottery notes that the villagers have little memory of why the lottery is held. But they are quick to turn against a person who is guilty of no other sin than having drawn the marked slip. As they pelt her with stones, Tessie tries to plead that she is not at fault. But the villagers are not listening and she is soon killed.