State Lottery Spends Another $25K on Travel

Arkansas Lottery

Since the end of September, the Arkansas Lottery has spent approximately $25,000 on mileage reimbursements for employees.

All told, the Lottery Office has reimbursed its employees more than $55,000 for driving around the state on official business since July 1 of this year.

The numbers come from the State of Arkansas’ official transparency website.

State employees receive 42 cents for every mile they travel on state business in their personal vehicles; some employees at the Arkansas Lottery average hundreds of dollars every month in reimbursement for their mileage.

That means the Arkansas Lottery has paid its employees for more than 130,000 miles of travel since July 1, 2020.

As we have written many times, the Arkansas Lottery probably could save a lot of money by using state vehicles for travel instead of paying employees to drive their personal vehicles — or by finding ways to reduce travel in general.

Photo Credit: Airtuna08 at English Wikipedia [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

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State-Run Lottery Unveils Even More Scratch-Off Tickets

Arkansas Lottery

The Arkansas Lottery recently unveiled a slate of four new scratch-off tickets, according to information posted on the Lottery’s website.

The tickets sell for anywhere from $1 to $10, and advertise prizes up to $200,000.

As we have written many times, the Arkansas Lottery has a habit of rolling out a steady stream of new lottery games every month.

The Lottery also spends more money on prizes than most state-run lotteries, and it relies very heavily on scratch-off tickets for revenue.

Players who buy the Arkansas Lottery’s newest $10 scratch-off ticket hoping to win $200,000 have roughly a two in three chance of losing their money. The odds of winning the jackpot are a staggering one in 440,000.

As we have said time and time again, scratch-off tickets like these are linked to problem gambling and gambling addiction.

A 2015 study in Canada described them as “paper slot machines.” 

A 2018 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found a link between how often a person played scratch-off tickets and the severity of a person’s gambling problem.

Despite all of this, the Arkansas Lottery continues to roll out new scratch-off tickets every month and budgets 70% of its revenue for prizes in an ongoing effort to prop up lottery ticket sales.

Photo Credit: Powerball and Mega Millions Lottery Billboard in Missouri by Tony Webster, on Flickr.

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