A lottery is a method of distributing something (usually money or prizes) among people based on chance. It is a form of gambling in which numbered tickets are sold, with winners determined by drawing lots; it is also a procedure for allocating public funds.

The first European lotteries with cash prizes in modern sense of the word appear in 15th-century Burgundy and Flanders, where towns raised money to fortify defenses or help the poor. A public lottery with prize money for a set number of tickets was also used in the 17th century by the Continental Congress to raise money to support the American Revolution, and private lotteries were common in England and America as mechanisms for obtaining voluntary taxes.

In The Lottery, Shirley Jackson depicts a small town in which the lottery tradition has become so entrenched that everyone takes part without question. The underlying message in this short story is that one can be too complacent about how things are done in society, and that the status quo can turn against you at any time.

In this study, the data was analyzed using regression analyses to examine the relationship between age and probability of winning the lottery. Several covariates were accounted for in the models including income, gender, race/ethnicity, and state of residence. It was found that there was a significant, positive relationship between age and likelihood of winning the lottery. It was also found that the probability of winning increased as participants entered the lottery more often.