Yesterday the Arkansas Lottery posted its financial reports for the month of August.
The reports show the Arkansas Lottery made more than $40.3 million last month, but paid out less than $6.2 million for scholarships. That means students received about 15 cents of every dollar the Lottery made in August.
For perspective, our neighbors in Louisiana budget at least 35% of their lottery’s revenue for education.
Although it is too early to tell, if the last two months are any indicator, the Arkansas Lottery will pay out somewhere around $70 – $80 million in college scholarships in Fiscal Year 2019 — well below the $100 million lottery proponents told voters in 2008 that students would get every year.
Below is a breakdown of Lottery figures so far this fiscal year.
| Month | Gross Lottery Revenue | Paid to Scholarships | % Gross Revenue |
| July | $42,413,352.70 | $5,066,628.73 | 11.9% |
| August | 40,343,279.62 | 6,175,998.40 | 15.3% |
| Total | $82,756,632.32 | $11,242,627.13 | 13.6% |
Photo Credit: Roman Oleinik [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons
