Day: February 15, 2025

Lottery is a form of gambling in which players purchase tickets and hope to win a prize based on the combination of numbers drawn by a machine. Lottery is a popular form of entertainment in many countries, including the United States. It raises billions of dollars annually for state governments. Some people play the lottery for fun while others believe that winning the jackpot will give them a better life. However, before you decide to buy a ticket, make sure that you understand the odds of winning and how much money you can expect to receive if you do win.

Lotteries are not the only way to fund public projects, but they are one of the most widely used methods. In the early days of the American Revolution, lotteries were widely used to help fund the Continental Army. Alexander Hamilton advocated that they should be simple, and he wrote: “Everybody will be willing to hazard a trifling sum for the chance of considerable gain…. They will prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a great probability of winning little.”

The odds of winning the lottery are extremely low, but the temptation to buy a ticket is strong and can easily lead to addiction. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce the likelihood of becoming addicted. It’s important to set clear financial goals before you start playing the lottery and to keep track of how often you play. If you find that you’re buying more tickets than you can afford, it’s time to stop.

In the US, most state governments run a lottery and use the proceeds to fund various programs. Most of the funds are paid out as prizes, but administrators also keep a percentage of the total sales to cover expenses such as commissions for retailers who sell tickets and operating costs for the lottery itself.

A portion of the proceeds is also distributed to local communities. This helps to support education, community and economic development, and other public services. Lottery proceeds are a source of funding for many different types of projects and programs, and they are an effective way to raise revenue without raising taxes.

Lottery marketing campaigns expertly capitalize on the fear of missing out, or FOMO. They show a lot of zeroes on TV, radio and billboards and emphasize the simplicity of participating. They also highlight stories of previous winners to create an aspirational message for potential customers. This messaging is successful in motivating individuals to take action because they believe that their lives will improve if they participate.

Lottery draws are a form of random selection, which is similar to how the NBA draft works for the best college players. The team with the worst record gets first pick, and the teams with the next four worst records get slightly fewer chances. The teams with the next six worst records then have fewer chances again, and so on. This process continues until the best college player is drafted.

The prize recognises individuals and organisations who have made outstanding contributions to Singapore’s defence capabilities. It also serves to foster technological innovation and breakthroughs in defence science and technology.

The winner receives a cash prize of up to $1 million, a trophy and a citation. In addition, the winning team will also be awarded a grant of up to $20 million to further develop their research and development initiatives and accelerate their path to commercialisation.

A project engineer from India, Balasubramanian Chithambaram, has won a whopping S$1 million (over Rs 8 crore) in the latest lucky draw at Mustafa Jewellery. The win is not only a huge boost for his family’s finances but will also allow him to contribute to charitable causes.

The 2023 edition of the Singapore Prize saw 17 writers, translators and comic artists win awards across four languages at the event organised by the National Book Council of Singapore (NBCS). It also introduced a Readers’ Favourite category this year which was won by history professor Wang Gungwu for his book on Chinese-language writing in Singapore.

Other winners included historian Khir Johari for his book The Food of the Singapore Malays, which took 14 years to complete and weighs in at a whopping 3.2kg. It beat five other books to take home the prize in the history category.

Distinguished translator Jeremy Tiang won the English translation category for his work with Chinese author Zhang Yueran’s Cocoon, a novel about two childhood friends putting to bed dark secrets linking them in the long shadow of the Cultural Revolution. The inaugural English comic or graphic novel category was won by Kenfoo’s self-published Cockman, a story of a chicken from another dimension stranded on Earth in human form, for its “total lack of seriousness and compromise and over-the-top audacity”.

Singapore Prize was established to recognise outstanding published works by authors in Singapore. It is open to books in any of the country’s official languages: Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. There are 12 top prizes – up to $10,000 each – for fiction, non-fiction and poetry in each language.

In the future, there could be plans to expand the types of works that can qualify for the prize, said Professor Kishore Mahbubani, senior advisor (university and global relations) at NUS. Citing movies like 12 Years a Slave as examples, he added that history can sometimes be told more effectively in fictional and other formats.

The finalists in each of the eight categories will be announced on Thursday. The winners will be honoured at the awards ceremony on Monday, 6 November.

This year’s ceremony will feature a special panel discussion on the impact of climate change and how we can repair our planet. The event will also host a series of local activations.