Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Lottery |
LotteryNoun1. Something that is regarded as a chance event; "the election was just a lottery to them". 2. Players buy chances and prizes are distributed according to the drawing of lots. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "lottery" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1599. (references) |
Note: Lottery \Lot"ter*y\, noun; plural Lotteries. [Lot + -ery, as in brewery, bindery.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of a lottery, and that you are taking great interest in the drawing, you will engage in some worthless enterprise, which will cause you to make an unpropitious journey. If you hold the lucky number, you will gain in a speculation which will perplex and give you much anxiety. To see others winning in a lottery, denotes convivialities and amusements, bringing many friends together. If you lose in a lottery, you will be the victim of designing persons. Gloomy depressions in your affairs will result. For a young woman to dream of a lottery in any way, denotes that her careless way of doing things will bring her disappointment, and a husband who will not be altogether reliable or constant. To dream of a lottery, denotes you will have unfavorable friendships in business. Your love affairs will produce temporary pleasure. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Post & Telecom | Licence award procedure on the basis of lotteries, which has been used particularly in the United States. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A lottery, i.e. a drawing of lots for a prize, is a popular form of gambling. Some states, such as those under Islamic law, forbid it, while others condone it to the extent of organizing a national lottery.
Countries with a national lottery
etc.
- Belgium: Loterie Nationale or Nationale Loterij
- Canada: Lotto 6/49 and Super 7
- France: La Française des Jeux
- Spain: La Lotería Nacional Española
- United Kingdom: The National Lottery
- Yugoslavia: Narodna Lutrija
Lotteries come in many formats. The prize can be fixed cash or goods. In this format there is risk to the organizer if insufficient tickets are sold. The prize can be a fixed percentage of the receipts. A popular form of this is the "50-50" draw where the organizers promise that the prize will be 50% of the revenue. The prize may be guaranteed to be unique where each ticket sold has a unique number. Many recent lotteries allow purchases to select the numbers on the lottery ticket resulting in the possibility of multiple winners.
Lotteries have been referred to as a "tax on stupidity" by social commentators as the odds of winning are astronomically low. Given the payoff structure, the maximum "revenue to risk ratio" occurs with the purchase of a single ticket; purchasing additional tickets does not proportional increase the expected value of the total purchase.
Lottery in the United States
In the United States, the existence of lotteries is subject to the laws of each state; there is no national lottery. The first state lottery in the U.S. was established in the state of New Hampshire in 1964; since then, lotteries have sprung up in over half of the states in the U.S. On October 8, 1970, New York held the first million dollar lottery drawing.
The first modern interstate lottery in the U.S. was Tri-State Lotto. Tri-State Lotto was formed in 1985 and linked the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1988, the Multi-State Lottery Association was formed with Oregon, Iowa, Kansas, Rhode Island, West Virginia and the District of Columbia as its charter members; it is best known for its "Powerball" drawing, which is designed to build up very large jackpots. Another interstate lottery, The Big Game (now called Mega Millions), was formed in 1996 by the states of Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia as its charter members.
Other interstate lotteries include: Hot Lotto, Lotto South, and Wild Card 2. For more detailed information on U.S. lotteries, see Lottery (U.S.)
See also: Keno
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lottery."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Lottery (U.S.) Here is a breakdown of lotteries in the United States by each state. Information listed here includes whether or not a state has a state lottery and if they are part of one or more interstate lotteries or not. Individual games will not be listed here. Note that information here is subject to change without notice and cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
State State Lottery? Number of Interstate Lotteries (if any)
Alabama NO (none) Alaska NO (none) Arizona Yes 1 Arkansas NO (none) California Yes 0 Colorado Yes 1 Connecticut Yes 1 Delaware Yes 2 District of Columbia Yes 1 Florida Yes 0 Georgia Yes 2 Hawaii NO (none) Idaho Yes 3 Illinois Yes 1 Indiana Yes 1 Iowa Yes 2 Kansas Yes 1 Kentucky Yes 2 Louisiana Yes 2 Maine Yes 1 Maryland Yes 1 Massachusetts Yes 1 Michigan Yes 1 Minnesota Yes 1 Mississippi NO (none) Missouri Yes 1 Montana Yes 3 Nebraska Yes 3 New Hampshire Yes 3 New Jersey Yes 1 New Mexico Yes 1 New York Yes 1 Nevada NO (none) North Carolina NO (none) North Dakota NO (none) Ohio Yes 1 Oklahoma NO (none) Oregon Yes 1 Pennsylvania Yes 1 Rhode Island Yes 1 South Carolina Yes 1 South Dakota Yes 3 Tennessee NO (none) Texas Yes 0 Utah NO (none) Vermont Yes 2 Virginia Yes 2 Washington Yes 1 West Virginia Yes 2 Wisconsin Yes 1 Wyoming NO (none)
States and associated Interstate Lotteries
Hot Lotto
Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, West Virginia
Lotto South
Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia
Mega Millions
Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Washington
Powerball (includes Wild Card 2)
Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin
Tri-State
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont
External links
- Multi-State Lottery homepage (Powerball, Hot Lotto, Wild Card 2, 2by2)
- Big Game Lottery homepage (Mega Millions)
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lottery (U.S.)."
Synonym: LotterySynonym: drawing (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Amusement | Cards, card games; whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique, euchre, drole, ecarte, picquet, allfours, quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston; blackjack, twenty-one, vingtun; quinze, thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino, lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren, lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, bridge whist; lotto, monte, three-card monte, nap, penny-ante, poker, reversis, squeezers, old maid, fright, beggar-my-neighbor; baccarat. |
Chance 2 | Noun: chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit; fate; (necessity); equal chance; lottery; tombola; toss up; turn of the table, turn of the cards; hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate; cast of the dice, throw of the dice; heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune; sortes, sortes Virgilianae. |
Intention | Speculate, try one's luck, set on a cast, raffle, put into a lottery, buy a pig in a poke, shuffle the cards. |
Wealth | Become rich; Adjective: strike it rich; come into a sum of money, receive a windfall, receive an inheritance, hit the jackpot, win the lottery; fill one's pocket; (treasury); feather one's nest, make a fortune; make money; (acquire). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Lottery |
| English words defined with "lottery": Lotteries, lottery winner ♦ Numbers, numbers game, numbers pool, numbers racket ♦ prize winner ♦ raffle ♦ sweepstake, sweepstakes ♦ tombola. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "lottery": Morocco Men ♦ PIGEONS. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Life is just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes (Reality Bites; writing credit: Helen Childress) Son, If you want something in life you have to work for it, now quit there about to announce the lottery numbers (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) I heard that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than you do getting struck by lightning (USA High; writing credit: Bernie Ancheta; Paul Corrigan) So congratulations, you've just become a $2,000,000 lottery ticket except the odds are much, much better (Ransom; writing credit: Cyril Hume; Richard Maibaum) Every day is a lottery, and first prize is that you don't have to scoot yourself around town on a skateboard with your hands (Malcolm in the Middle; writing credit: Daniel Frenette) | |
Lyrics | He won the lottery and died the next day (Ironic; performing artist: Alanis Morissette) | |
Clever | The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. (references; author: unknown) What do 100% of all lottery winners do? Gain weight. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Lottery Ticket (1970) The Love Lottery (1954) Devil's Lottery (1932) The Lottery Bride (1930) A Lot About a Lottery (1920) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Drogas Y SIDA: No juegues loteria con tu vida. : Durg Abuse & AIDS: Don't play lottery with your life. / Design: Herbert Sigüenza. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Woman waiting for land lottery, Puerto Rico, 1946. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Liquors and lottery" by Michelle Kwajafa Commentary: "Liquor store and lottery tickets in baltimore." | "Wet & dry" by Craig Young Commentary: "Tyre selection a lottery." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption |
 | Lottery balls being churned in the bin. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Queen Victoria | I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all, and for a poor woman a very doubtful happiness. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Win in the lottery, and you are an able man. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The company has a very aggressive marketing policy, attracting its clients by offering bonus traffic, lottery and package discounts. (references) | |
This is supported by the fact that each year, a total of USD 100 million is taken from lottery proceeds to finance the construction of sporting facilities in Poland. (references) | ||
Economic History | Slovak Rep | There is no tax on a consumer lottery if the total annual amount invested is less than SK 300,000 ($6000). A consumer lottery above SK 300,000 ($6000) annually (per company) is taxed 15 percent. (references) |
Trade | Vietnam | There are four rates of VAT: (i.) zero percent for exported goods; (ii.) five percent for the provision of essential goods and services (e.g. clean water, food stuff, medicine); (iii.) standard rate of 10 percent for activities such as power generation, mineral products, postal, and transportation services; and (iv.) 20 percent for activities such as lottery and brokerage. (references) |
Worker Rights | Ethiopia | In urban areas, numerous children can be seen working in a variety of jobs, including shining shoes, hustling passengers into cabs, working as porters, selling lottery tickets, and herding animals. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Lottery" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Lottery" is used about 360 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 360 | 14,962 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name |
| USA | International Lottery & Totalizator Sys |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "lottery": draw of a lottery ♦ free lottery ticket ♦ lottery coupon ♦ lottery loan ♦ lottery prize list ♦ lottery ticket ♦ lottery wheel ♦ lottery winner ♦ national lottery ♦ put in the lottery ♦ put into a lottery ♦ scratch card lottery ♦ state lottery ♦ top lottery prize. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "lottery": lottery-ticket. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
lottery | 32,411 | south carolina lottery | 2,484 |
florida lottery | 16,575 | missouri lottery | 2,315 |
california lottery | 13,832 | wisconsin lottery | 2,301 |
texas lottery | 10,669 | new york state lottery | 2,283 |
pa lottery | 10,483 | pennsylvania lottery | 2,236 |
nj lottery | 9,117 | lottery number | 2,140 |
illinois lottery | 8,752 | hoosier lottery | 2,129 |
michigan lottery | 7,675 | arizona lottery | 1,971 |
ohio lottery | 7,658 | louisiana lottery | 1,951 |
georgia lottery | 7,576 | sc lottery | 1,948 |
ny lottery | 5,965 | washington state lottery | 1,938 |
virginia lottery | 5,671 | kentucky lottery | 1,900 |
massachusetts lottery | 5,409 | nys lottery | 1,726 |
new jersey lottery | 4,426 | colorado lottery | 1,583 |
new york lottery | 4,316 | ontario lottery | 1,365 |
lottery result | 4,137 | national lottery | 1,275 |
maryland lottery | 3,867 | mega millions lottery | 1,192 |
ga lottery | 2,895 | oregon lottery | 1,180 |
va lottery | 2,764 | ky lottery | 1,132 |
power ball lottery | 2,611 | lottery winnings | 1,091 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "lottery"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | lotari (draw, raffle, sweepstakes), fat (chance, circumstance, cup, destiny, dole, doom, fate, fortune, hap, happiness, hit, kismet, lot, luck, mercy, portion, predetermine, share, spouse, weird). (various references) | |
Arabic | يا نصيب (raffle, sweepstakes), مسألة حظ (hit or miss). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | лотария (draw), лотариен. (various references) | |
Chinese | 抽奖 (Lotteries). (various references) | |
Czech | loterie (lotto, raffle). (various references) | |
Danish | lotteri (raffle), lodtrækning (choose by lot, draw by lot, drawing, drawing by lot), spillebod med lykkehjul. (various references) | |
Dutch | verloting (raffle), loterij (raffle). (various references) | |
Esperanto | loterio (raffle). (various references) | |
Faeroese | happadráttur (raffle). (various references) | |
Farsi | کارالله بختی , لاطاری , قرعه کشی (Draw), قرعه (Grace, Lot), شانسی , بخت ازماءی . (various references) | |
Finnish | arpajaiset. (various references) | |
French | loterie. (various references) | |
German | Lotterie (raffle, ruffle), Verlosung (draw, drawing, drawing lots, raffle, raffling). (various references) | |
Greek | λαχείο (lottery ticket, raffle). (various references) | |
Hebrew | הגרלה (raffle, toss). (various references) | |
Hungarian | tombola (lotto, raffle, tombola), sorsjáték (draw, raffle), lottó (numbers pool). (various references) | |
Icelandic | tombóla (raffle), hlutavelta (raffle). (various references) | |
Indonesian | undian. (various references) | |
Italian | lotteria (raffle, sweepstake). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 抽選 (drawing, raffle). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | たからくじ, くじびき (drawn lot), くじ (bygones, civil suit, lot, past events, political operations, political operations and ceremonies of the Imperial Court), ふくびき (drawing, tombola), あみだくじ, とみくじ, ちゅうせん (drawing, raffle). (various references) | |
Korean | 추첨 (Lotteries). (various references) | |
Malay | loteri (raffle), lotere (raffle). (various references) | |
Manx | cronchor (lot, raffle, sweepstake), cron tayrn. (various references) | |
Norwegian | lotteri. (various references) | |
Papiamen | loteria (raffle). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | otterylay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | loteria (raffle). (various references) | |
Romanian | loto (lotto), loterie (draw, raffle). (various references) | |
Russian | лотерея (draw, raffle, sweepstakes). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | lutrija (draw, raffle). (various references) | |
Spanish | sorteo (ballot, draw, lot, raffle, sortition, toss up), lotería. (various references) | |
Sranan | lotrey (raffle). (various references) | |
Swedish | lotteri (draw, gamble, raffle). (various references) | |
Thai | สลากกินแบ่ง, การเสี่ยงโชค (gamble). (various references) | |
Turkish | piyango (raffle, sweepstake, sweepstakes), píyango (raffle). (various references) | |
Turkmen | lotereяa (r). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | випадковість (accident, accidental, chance, contingency, eventuality, fortuity, haphazard), лотерея. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | cuộc xổ số điều may rủi. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Lottery" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Clottery, Lettario, Letterio, llottery, loter, Lotery, lottary, lotter, Lotterby, lotterys, lottory, Luttrel, Oterey. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "lottery" (pronounced lÄ"terē) |
| 4 | -Ä" t er ē | pottery. |
| 3 | -t er ē | adultery, alimentary, artery, battery, blustery, buttery, complimentary, contradictory, coterie, directory, jittery, documentary, eatery, effrontery, factory, flattery, glittery, history, introductory, mastery, mystery, notary, olfactory, parliamentary, peremptory, perfunctory, premonitory, protohistory, rectory, refractory, rotary, rudimentary, satisfactory, sedimentary, splintery, supplementary, testamentary, trajectory, unsatisfactory, upholstery, valedictory, victory, watery. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-l-o-r-t-t-y" | |
-1 letter: tetryl, trotyl. | |
-2 letters: lotte, otter, rotte, torte, toter, toyer. | |
-3 letters: lore, lory, lyre, orle, oyer, rely, role, rote, rotl, ryot, tole, tore, tort, tory, tote, tret, trey, trot, troy, tyer, tyre, tyro, yett, yore. | |
-4 letters: let, ley, lot, lye, ole, ore, ort, ret, roe, rot, rye, tel, tet, toe, tor, tot, toy, try, tye. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-l-o-r-t-t-y" | |
+1 letter: rottenly, toiletry. | |
+2 letters: tetralogy. | |
+3 letters: contritely, methylator, rotatively, teratology, tolerantly, troglodyte. | |
+4 letters: dilatometry, electrolyte, electrotype, fortunately, heterolytic, hortatively, methylators, phytosterol, potteringly, prepotently, proteolytic, pterodactyl, retaliatory, storyteller, temporality, tetraploidy, totteringly, troglodytes, ventilatory. | |
+5 letters: biotelemetry, clitorectomy, counterstyle, electrolytes, electrolytic, electrotyped, electrotyper, electrotypes, erythroblast, exorbitantly, extrasystole, intolerantly, keratoplasty, levorotatory, noteworthily, phytosterols, portentously, protectively, pterodactyls, reticulocyte, stertorously, storytellers, storytelling, streptolysin, tetragonally, tetrapyrrole, tolerability, torrentially, yellowthroat. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Familiar 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Quotations: Non-fiction | 13. Usage Frequency 14. Names: Company Usage 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet | 17. Translations: Modern 18. Derivations 19. Rhymes 20. Anagrams | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
