Whether you dream of buying a luxury home, traveling the world or clearing your debts, winning the lottery can be a life-changing experience. But it’s important to have a strong mathematical foundation to help you choose the right numbers. Unless you have a superpower or a paranormal creature to help you, mathematics is the best way to optimize your chances of success.
In fact, the word “lottery” is derived from the Dutch noun lot meaning fate (Oxford English Dictionary). The first recorded lotteries were in the Low Countries in the 15th century, and records from towns like Ghent, Utrecht, and Bruges indicate that the games raised funds for a variety of town uses, including building walls and town fortifications.
As the popularity of lotteries grew, it became common for people to donate goods and services to be used as the prizes. The Continental Congress used a lottery to raise money for the Revolutionary War, and Alexander Hamilton wrote that lotteries were a painless form of taxation.
Today, 44 states and the District of Columbia offer state-run lotteries. The six states that don’t—Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Utah, and Nevada—do so for varying reasons: Alabama and Utah are motivated by religious concerns; Mississippi and Nevada don’t offer lotteries because they already allow gambling, which takes away from their revenue streams; and Alaska has a surplus budget and doesn’t need to generate additional revenues. However, even if a state doesn’t run a lottery, it can still support private lotteries and encourage the growth of the industry.