In Part 1 of our series about overturning the Arkansas Lottery, we examined how the “lottery for scholarships” we were all promised has really become more of a “lottery for profit,” with scholarships being almost an afterthought than the primary focus of the Arkansas Lottery. Today I want to examine another reason for abolishing the Arkansas Lottery: The economic harm it is causing our state.
The Arkansas Lottery pays only 21.5% of its revenue in college scholarships. Even though that figure is low, the Arkansas Lottery Commission still expects to dole out $100 million each year in scholarship money. So how much money do Arkansans have to spend on lottery tickets in order to make that happen.
Using a little 9th Grade Algebra, we know that 0.215 x Gross Revenue = 100,000,000. That means that Gross Revenue = 100,000,000/0.215, which equals roughly $465,116,280.
That means that in order to award $100 million dollars in scholarship money, Arkansans will have to spend nearly half a billion dollars on lottery tickets.
That’s nearly half a billion dollars that could have been spent on groceries, clothing, housing, gasoline, or any number of other products. In other words, that’s nearly half a billion dollars taken out of the Arkansas economy and dumped into the State Lottery’s coffers.
Removing half a billion dollars from the economy just doesn’t make sense—especially when our economy is still struggling to recover. The State of Arkansas should promote economic growth by encouraging people to spend their money at Arkansas businesses, not dampen the economy by stripping it of so much money.
Our lottery is hurting Arkansas’ economy, and it’s time we put an end to it.
Mary
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