Last Friday the Arkansas released its financial report for the month of January 2019.
The report shows the Arkansas Lottery grossed nearly $40.6 million last month, but paid just $7.8 million to college scholarships — about 19 cents out of every dollar the lottery made.
In the last seven months the Arkansas Lottery has given about 17% of its revenue to scholarships — less than half the percentage our neighbors to the south in Louisiana allocate for education.
After ten years of failed promises to change and improve, the Arkansas Lottery continues to fail to make scholarship funding a serious priority.
Below is a breakdown of Lottery revenue 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% |
September | 35,198,809.72 | 7,783,450.82 | 22.1% |
October | 57,575,285.62 | 11,259,040.31 | 19.6% |
November | 37,700,016.00 | 6,821,411.01 | 18.1% |
December | 45,859,642.73 | 6,650,791.54 | 14.5% |
January, 2019 | 40,574,813.28 | 7,848,495.62 | 19.3% |
Total | $ 299,665,199.67 | $ 51,605,816.43 | 17.2% |