Arkansas Lottery Gives Less than 20% of Revenue to Scholarships in April

Today the Arkansas Lottery released its figures for the month of April, 2016.

The report shows lottery revenue came in at around $37.5 million, and the Lottery put nearly $7.4 million toward college scholarships–about 19.7% of its total revenue for the month of April.

Sadly, 19.7% is one of the Arkansas Lottery’s better figures. So far this fiscal year we have seen months in which only 11% or 14% of the Lottery’s gross revenue went to scholarships. By contrast, the average state lottery allocates closer to 30% of gross revenue for education; our neighbors to the south in Louisiana allocate 35%.

What’s striking, however, is in looking at the report, the Arkansas Lottery actually spent $458,718.44 more than it made in the month of April in order to achieve that 19.7% figure. Had the Arkansas Lottery not spent more money than it took in over the course of the month, scholarship funding would have been about $6,934,118.56 (about 18.5% of Lottery revenue for the month).

Below is a breakdown of Lottery sales and scholarship funding for Fiscal Year 2016, which began last July and ends next month.

So far the Lottery has put about $67.5 million toward scholarships–about 17.6% of its gross revenue– since last July.

Based on these figures, we project the Arkansas Lottery will allocate somewhere around $85 million for scholarships, total, this fiscal year–once again, far less than the $100 million lottery proponents claimed time and time again a state-run lottery would provide in scholarship funding each year.

Related posts:

Lottery Commission Gives Raises as Revenue, Scholarships Languish Lottery Finally Gives More than 20% of Gross Revenue for Scholarships Arkansas Lottery Gives Paltry 11% of Revenue to Scholarships in February AR Lottery Gives Scholarships Less Than 23 Cents on the Dollar in July