Arkansas Lottery Spends Over 4x as Much on Prizes as Scholarships

Arkansas Lottery

This week the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of January.

The report shows the Lottery took in nearly $41 million last month, but paid only $8.2 million to scholarships — about 20 cents of every dollar it made.

Overall, only about 15% the Arkansas Lottery’s revenue this fiscal year has gone to scholarships.

However, nearly 69% of lottery revenue goes to prizes — one of the highest prize budgets of any lottery in America.

Altogether, the Arkansas Lottery spends nearly 4.5 times more money on prizes than on scholarships.

As we have said time and time again: The Arkansas Lottery’s priorities are completely out of balance. Students ought to come first — not last.

Below is a breakdown of Arkansas Lottery scholarship spending so far this fiscal year.

Month Gross Lottery Revenue Paid to Scholarships % Gross Revenue
July $41,239,173.79 $4,523,930.75 11.0%
August 40,899,086.75 4,942,736.97 12.1%
September 36,202,677.79 6,565,973.32 18.1%
October 38,932,640.23 6,318,099.21 16.2%
November 36,118,641.12 5,947,177.45 16.5%
December 46,134,469.21 6,371,983.49 13.8%
January, 2020 40,802,067.75 8,239,083.77 20.2%
Total $280,328,756.64 $42,908,984.96 15.3%

Below is a breakdown of the Arkansas Lottery’s spending on prizes for the fiscal year.

Month Gross Lottery Revenue Prizes % Going to Prizes
July $41,239,173.79 $27,395,174.44 66.4%
August 40,899,086.75 27,981,278.90 68.4%
September 36,202,677.79 25,380,100.69 70.1%
October 38,932,640.23 26,836,578.14 68.9%
November 36,118,641.12 24,593,530.95 68.1%
December 46,134,469.21 32,772,295.09 71.0%
January, 2020 40,802,067.75 27,636,240.24 67.7%
Total $280,328,756.64 $192,595,198.45 68.7%

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Video: Can Anyone Be a Woman?

Video, ,

Recently our friends at the “What Would You Say?” YouTube channel asked attendees at the 2020 Women’s March to define what a woman is and to answer whether or not anybody can be a woman.

Apparently the question is much harder than one might think.

This week they released a second video asking attendees at the National March for Life in Washington, D.C., the very same question.

Check out the video below to see how pro-lifers answered the question.

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Pro-Abortion Groups Drop “Rare” From Their Talking Points

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In years past, pro-abortion groups said abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare.”

Today, however, abortion’s supporters seem to be leaving that last word — rare — out of their talking points.

Last week Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes Arkansas tweeted, “The vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should remain safe and legal, and we’re doing everything we can to keep it that way.”

There are a few problems with Planned Parenthood’s message — like the fact that most Americans actually believe abortion ought to be either completely illegal or legal only in certain circumstances, and the fact that many of those who do believe abortion should be available to some extent also believe abortion should be illegal after the first trimester of pregnancy.

All of that aside, it’s telling that Planned Parenthood doesn’t say abortion ought to be rare.

The same is true of the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice.

The group recently hosted a pro-abortion rally on the steps of the Capitol Building in Little Rock.

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, ACRJ posted a statement saying, “Today we celebrate our legal right to abortion and recommit ourselves to fighting to keep abortion safe, legal and accessible.”

Here are a couple of points to consider:

First, abortion is never safe. It certainly isn’t safe for the unborn baby who is killed, but it also isn’t safe for the woman on whom the abortion is performed.

Abortion carries a number of risks and consequences. We are reminded of that fact every time an ambulance is dispatched to Arkansas’ abortion facilities.

That’s one reason why Arkansas has one of the strongest informed-consent laws for abortion in America.

Informed-consent laws ensure women receive all the facts about abortion and about the alternatives that exist to abortion.

Second, there’s nothing to celebrate when it comes to abortion. In the past even those who supported abortion argued it still ought to remain rare. Today that isn’t the case. Celebrating and trivializing abortion the way some groups do would have been unheard of even a decade ago.

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