Arkansas Lottery – Page 62

Arkansas Lottery Lowers Scholarships, Approves New Hires, Advertising

Jun 26, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

Yesterday, the Arkansas Lottery Commission revised its projections for college scholarships, indicating that, with only days remaining in the state’s fiscal year, scholarship totals would come in around $80.5 million–roughly $9 million less than originally projected.

Lottery officials continue to say the goal is to “raise” as much money as possible for college students, but the Lottery’s actions tell a different story. For instance, at yesterday’s meeting the Arkansas Lottery Commission:

Hired an $89,000 public relations aid;
Authorized an extra $500,000 in lottery advertising;
Hired a security director with a salary of $98,500; and
Lowered scholarship projections for the year.

The Arkansas Lottery continues to cut scholarship projections, and yet it also manages to find money to hire employees and pay for advertisements the Lottery has done without for the past several months. I don’t think anyone really believes the lagging ticket sales the Lottery is experiencing are the result of not having a public relations person.

Additionally, the Arkansas Lottery Commission seems dead-set on implementing “monitor games” in Arkansas–despite objections from state legislators and the Lottery Commission’s own projections showing monitor games will not make the Arkansas Lottery a booming success.

So what is really going on down at the Lottery Commission?

Why Are Scholarship Funds Dropping at the Arkansas Lottery?

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Arkansas Lottery Looks to Hire $89K Public Relations Aide

Jun 5, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

According to a story in today’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Lottery Commission’s Personnel Committee has approved a proposal to hire a public relations and legislative liaison for $88,957 a year. The full commission will vote on the proposal later this month.

To be fair, the position is not a new one; Lottery Commissioner Julie Baldridge held the job before retiring in April of 2013, and it has been vacant ever since. But the Arkansas Lottery seems to have gotten along just fine without a PR person. Yes, ticket sales have continued to drop at the Arkansas Lottery, and scholarship projections have been cut time and time again, but you can’t blame that on poor public relations–although it might be the kind of thing a public relations aide could help gloss over.

In the face of lagging revenue, the Arkansas Lottery seems to be bent on using the same, tired strategy of rolling out more gambling, spending extra on advertising, and, now, hiring an $89,000 PR aide–presumably to boost the lottery’s image.

So far, those tactics haven’t delivered the “world class” lottery we were all promised back in 2009. Is there really any reason to think that strategy will work this time?

Keno and Powerball: What’s the Difference?

Jun 4, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery, Keno

The Arkansas Lottery has decided to bring “monitor games” to the state later this summer despite objections from lawmakers. One of the first monitor games they apparently plan to roll out is, for lack of a better term, keno.

We’ve heard a few people describe the monitor games as “keno-like” or “similar to Powerball.” Many people do not know what keno is, and they assume it’s just another lottery game. Here’s a very brief breakdown of keno and a few ways it differs from your typical lottery (Note: For the sake of example, we are comparing Keno to Powerball, as Powerball is fairly standard lottery).

How Keno and Powerball Are Similar

Both are, essentially, “draw games.” In a “draw game,” players try to guess which numbers will be drawn from a pool of numbers. For instance, if I ask you to guess a number between 1 and 10, you could call that a “draw game.” I thought of (drew) one number out of ten possible numbers, and I asked you to guess which number I drew. This would be called a 1-from-10 lottery (one number chosen from ten possible numbers).