The practice of distributing property or rewards by lot goes back centuries. The Old Testament instructs Moses to conduct a census of the people and divide up land by lot; Roman emperors used lots to give away slaves and properties. Lotteries were introduced to the United States by British colonists and attracted much criticism. They were outlawed in ten states between 1844 and 1859, mostly because of religious objections.
Even when people know that the odds of winning a lottery are long, they often continue to play because of the hope that they will win, and this is not irrational behavior. The Bible warns us not to covet money and things that money can buy, and it is a sin (see Ecclesiastes 5:10). People are also lured into playing the lottery by promises that their problems will be solved if they can only hit it big. Lotteries are a form of gambling that can be addictive, and there are many stories of families who have suffered because they won the lottery.
The first modern public lotteries appeared in the 15th century in the Low Countries, where towns held them to raise money for building town fortifications and helping the poor. The oldest surviving European lottery is the Dutch state-owned Staatsloterij, which dates to 1726. The modern-day popularity of the lottery in America owes to the post-World War II period, when states needed revenue and hoped that it would be easier for them to make people gamble than to tax them directly.