Fair Lottery

Definition ∞ A fair lottery is a selection process designed to ensure that every participant has an equal and unbiased chance of winning, with outcomes that are genuinely random and not manipulable. In the context of decentralized systems, achieving fairness requires cryptographic methods to prevent participants or operators from influencing the results. Such systems aim to guarantee transparency and verifiable randomness. This is crucial for trust in decentralized applications requiring random selection.
Context ∞ The implementation of fair lotteries is a key challenge in various decentralized applications, including non-fungible token NFT distributions, decentralized autonomous organization DAO governance, and validator selection mechanisms. Developers are exploring advanced cryptographic techniques, such as verifiable random functions VRFs, to create truly unpredictable and provably fair outcomes. Ensuring fairness is essential for maintaining user confidence and the integrity of decentralized protocols.