A competition in which tokens or numbers are drawn at random to determine the winners, especially as a means of raising funds for a state, charity, etc. Also used as a noun: 1. the action of drawing lots; 2. the event or result of such a competition; 3. a system of assigning places in the campgrounds, or other spaces, by lot; 4. a method of deciding doubtful matters by chance: “The king declared that he had no pleasure in determining such questions by lottery” (from Old English sortilegij, from Latin lotterium, meaning ‘casting of lots’).
There are many different types of Lottery. The earliest were organized as games of chance during Roman dinner parties and were characterized by the distribution of articles of unequal value. Benjamin Franklin organized a lottery to raise money for the construction of Philadelphia’s cannons and George Washington promoted a land and slave Lottery in 1769 in The Virginia Gazette.
The most important elements of a lottery are the pool or collection of tickets and their counterfoils from which the winning numbers or symbols will be chosen, and the procedure for selecting them. The tickets must be thoroughly mixed by some mechanical procedure, such as shaking or tossing, and the drawing may involve a random process, such as drawing names from a hat, a numbered receipt, or a computer-generated random number.
In general, the odds of winning a lottery are quite low. While it can be fun to play, a person should not consider it a get-rich-quick scheme, and should rather pursue wealth through diligent work as God intended: “Lazy hands make for poverty; but diligent hands bring riches” (Proverbs 23:5).