A lottery or game where people buy numbered tickets and winners are chosen by drawing random tickets from a container.
From French 'rafle' (a game of dice), possibly from Old Norse 'hræfi' or German 'Raffe' (grab). The word traveled through French merchants into English in the 1600s.
Raffles were originally just about gambling with dice in France, but the method became so popular for fundraising that charity raffles became the 'respectable' version of gambling—same concept, different intent.
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