The Arkansas Lottery’s prize budget for lottery players is more than four times larger than its budget for college scholarships, a new report indicates.

The Arkansas Lottery’s financial report for the month of October shows since July 1 the Arkansas Lottery has spent nearly $134.1 million on prizes, but it has spent less than $32.6 million on students.

All told, only about 17% of the Arkansas Lottery’s budget actually funds college scholarships, but nearly 71% of its budget pays for prizes for lottery players.

As we have written repeatedly, the typical state-run lottery budgets approximately 60% of its revenue for prizes and 30% for education.

The Arkansas Lottery could pay millions of dollars more to scholarships if it simply would reduce its prize budget and raise its scholarship budget — plain and simple.

Below is a breakdown of Lottery revenue and prize spending since Fiscal Year 2021 began on July 1.

Scholarship Spending

MonthGross Lottery RevenuePaid to Scholarships% Gross Revenue
July$49,780,369.99$8,592,573.9317.3%
August49,672,105.047,862,917.4415.8%
September47,501,224.727,691,576.9916.2%
October42,615,839.968,447,337.0019.8%
Total$189,569,539.71$32,594,405.3617.2%

Prize Spending

MonthGross Lottery RevenueTotal Prizes% Going to Prizes
July49,780,369.9935,641,717.4871.6%
August49,672,105.0435,023,856.8370.5%
September47,501,224.7233,422,556.1470.4%
October42,615,839.9629,995,072.5070.4%
Total189,569,539.71134,083,202.9570.7%