A lottery is a form of gambling in which numbers are drawn for a prize. Some governments outlaw it, while others endorse it and organize a state or national lottery. Generally, the odds of winning are very low, but many people still play in the hope that they will become rich. The Huffington Post’s Highline recently profiled a Michigan couple who made nearly $27 million over nine years by playing lotteries, and the husband explained how they did it. He and his wife figured out that buying tickets in bulk would improve their chances of winning by allowing them to purchase multiple combinations of numbers, thus raising their total odds of success. And they did just that, spending their money on thousands of tickets at a time.

Since New Hampshire’s 1964 introduction of the first modern state lottery, virtually every state has adopted one, and most have gone on to expand their operations. These expansions typically involve a number of changes to the structure of the lottery, including its legal status (either as a state agency or public corporation, or in some cases, an authorized private firm that takes on the duties and obligations of a lottery). State lotteries also often adopt innovations modeled on the illegal numbers games once common in major cities.

In addition, states that operate a lottery usually develop extensive specific constituencies: convenience store owners who sell the tickets; suppliers of equipment and services to the lottery; teachers in states in which lotteries raise funds for education; and state legislators, who learn to appreciate the steady revenue stream. And while the overall public has been supportive of state lotteries, this support has remained independent of a state’s objective fiscal conditions.