Lottery scholarship revenue dropped by nearly $300,000 in August as ticket sales fell, according to the latest monthly report from the Arkansas Lottery.

The Arkansas Lottery took in nearly $31.3 million dollars during the month of August, but only paid out about $5.5 million.

Altogether, only 17.6 cents of every dollar the Arkansas Lottery makes goes to fund scholarships.

While the Lottery is only two months into Fiscal Year 2016, scholarship funding is on track to come in around $70 million for the year–$30 million less than lottery proponents promised Arkansans when the Lottery was first instituted in Arkansas. Of course, we have written time and again about a few simple changes Lottery officials could make to increase scholarship funding.

Below is a breakdown of lottery ticket sales and scholarship funding for Fiscal Year 2016.

Month (FY16) Gross Lottery Revenue Paid to Scholarships % Gross Revenue
July $ 31,665,651.14 $ 5,784,683.09 18.3%
August  31,265,177.55  5,490,094.00 17.6%
Total $ 62,930,828.69 $ 11,274,777.09 17.9%