Category: Arkansas Lottery

Lottery Scholarship Funding Pathetic Despite Record Sales

Yesterday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of March.

The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in more than $53.5 million last month, but paid out less than $8 million for scholarships — not even 15 cents of every dollar it made.

March was the Arkansas Lottery’s best month since January of 2016, but the college scholarships the lottery is supposed to fund still drew the short straw. In fact, since last July the Lottery has awarded only 16.7% of its revenue to the state’s scholarship fund. That’s pathetic.

As we have said time and time again, the Lottery doesn’t have a revenue problem; its priorities are out of whack. Below is a breakdown of lottery revenue so far this fiscal year.

READ MORE

AR Lottery Paying 17 Cents on the Dollar to Scholarships This Fiscal Year

On Friday the Arkansas Lottery released its monthly financial report for February.

The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in nearly $39.4 million, but paid out less than $6 million for college scholarships — about 15% of all the money it made last month.

So far this fiscal year the Arkansas Lottery is allocating a paltry 17% of its income for college scholarships.

The Arkansas Lottery has been an abysmal failure. Ten years ago, lottery proponents said a state-run lottery would generate $100 million per year for Arkansas’ Academic Challenge Scholarship. That hasn’t happened.

Instead, last month the Arkansas Legislature voted to allocate $25 million in taxpayer money to help supplement the Academic Challenge Scholarship. Lawmakers have had to do this every year since the Lottery was established.

If the Lottery Office would change its priorities and increase the percentage of its budget it sets aside for students, it could easily generate much more money in scholarship funding.

Below is a breakdown of the lottery’s revenue and scholarship budget so far this fiscal year.

READ MORE

Arkansas Lottery Still Paying Small Sums for Scholarships

Recently the Arkansas Lottery released its monthly financial report for January.

The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in over $44 million in January alone, but gave Arkansas’ college scholarship fund a paltry $8.2 million — less than 19 cents out of every dollar the Arkansas Lottery made.

Unfortunately this is nothing new.

For years the Arkansas Lottery has consistently made tens of millions of dollars each month, but has budgeted small amounts of money for the college scholarships it is supposed to fund; in December the Arkansas Lottery allocated less than 15% of its gross revenue for scholarships.

You can see a breakdown of the Arkansas Lottery’s financial figures so far this fiscal year below.

READ MORE