Lottery Officials on the Defense

Last Sunday, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette featured a news story about the Arkansas Lottery’s decision to only allocate approximately 21.5% of its revenue for college scholarships.

The fact is, as we’ve pointed out before, Arkansas’ lottery—whose foundational purpose is supposed to be providing college scholarships—is paying less than 22-cents on the dollar toward scholarships.  That puts Arkansas’ lottery at the 4th lowest in the nation when it comes to revenue allocated for education.

Arkansas Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue defends Arkansas’ position by stating that allocating a larger percentage of revenue for scholarships would require them to pay out less money in prizes, and that paying out prizes is what makes people play the lottery.  So ensuring there are plenty of prizes is the key to scholarship revenue. But there are two huge problems with his logic.

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Family Council Action Committee Notifying Stores of Concerns

The following is a press release from the Family Council Action Committee

Today, Family Council Action Committee President Jerry Cox mailed letters to Arkansas’ Dollar General, Family Dollar, Fred’s Discount, and Walgreens stores.  In the letter, he outlined some concerns his group and others have expressed about lottery ticket vending machines.

Cox said, “All we want to do is make sure that store owners get the whole story on these vending machines.  The machines are very controversial, and Arkansas’ store owners need to know that.”

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