A lottery is a game of chance in which a prize is awarded to individuals who purchase tickets. The prizes are typically money or goods. In most modern lotteries, participants pay a small amount of money in exchange for the chance to win a large sum. Prizes are often predetermined and costs (including profits for the promoter and the cost of promoting the lottery) and taxes or other revenues are deducted from the pool of funds awarded to winners. Other types of lotteries are used for military conscription, commercial promotions in which property is given away in a random manner, and the selection of jury members from lists of registered voters.
The purchase of lottery tickets cannot be accounted for by decision models based on expected value maximization, since lottery math shows that the ticket price is often more than the expected utility of winning a prize. However, more general models that incorporate risk-seeking behavior can account for the purchase of lottery tickets. For example, if the entertainment value of playing the lottery is high enough for a particular individual, then the disutility of the monetary loss associated with purchasing a ticket may be outweighed by the expected utility of non-monetary gains.
The poorest people in society do not have a great deal of discretionary money to spend on lottery tickets. So they are unlikely to win. In fact, most of the money in a lottery pool comes from those at the 21st through 60th percentile of the income distribution. These are people with a few dollars left over after buying food, clothing and utilities to purchase tickets for the chance to become rich.