LOTTERY

[noun] [C] - a game, often organized by the state or a charity in order to make money, in which people buy tickets with numbers on them. Several numbers are then chosen by chance and the people who have tickets with those numbers on them win prizes, esp. prizes of money.The national lottery will raise money for the arts.(disapproving) If you describe something as a lottery, you mean that it depends only on luck and it is not very fair.Education in England is something of a lottery.