Video: Arkansas Lottery Gives Students 19 Cents Out of Every Dollar
The Arkansas Lottery gave students a paltry sum in FY19. Watch this video to learn more.
Arkansas Lottery Gives Paltry Sum to Students in FY 2019
Last week the Arkansas Lottery released its financial reports for the month of June, capping off the Lottery’s Fiscal Year 2019.
The reports show the Arkansas Lottery took in more than $38.4 million in June.
Only about 17% of that money went to pay for college scholarships. The rest was spent on the lottery itself.
At the end of each fiscal year, the Lottery gives most of the unclaimed prize money in its possession to the state’s Academic Challenge Scholarship fund. This year the lottery took about $6.8 million from its unclaimed prizes account to pay for additional college scholarships.
All told, between the unclaimed prize money and the money the Lottery normally budgets for scholarships, students received a little less than $13.5 million from the Lottery last month.
For Fiscal Year 2019, the Arkansas Lottery took in more than half a billion dollars — a record-breaking year. However, college students received only a very small fraction of that money — less than one-fifth or about 19% of all the money the Arkansas Lottery made
The fact that college students received so little money despite the Lottery setting records in revenue and ticket sales speaks volumes about where the Arkansas Lottery’s priorities really lie.
Below is a breakdown of lottery revenue and scholarship funding in Fiscal Year 2019.
| 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% |
| February | 41,060,111.75 | 8,198,257.31 | 20.0% |
| March | 51,988,380.67 | 8,552,307.04 | 16.5% |
| April | 43,951,257.94 | 8,176,383.34 | 18.6% |
| May | 41,158,346.08 | 8,396,193.42 | 20.4% |
| June | 38,413,526.87 | 13,482,789.59 | 35.1% |
| Total | $516,236,822.98 | $98,411,747.13 | 19.1% |
Pine Bluff City Council Moves One Step Closer to Allowing Public Drinking
Yesterday the Pine Bluff Commercial reported the Pine Bluff City Council’s Development and Planning Committee recently voted to permit public drinking in the city’s outdoor entertainment district.
The entire city council must vote on the measure in order to approve it.
Earlier this year the Arkansas Legislature narrowly passed Act 812 by Sen. Trent Garner (R – El Dorado) and Rep. Sonia Barker (R – Smackover). The act lets cities create “entertainment districts” where alcohol can be carried and consumed publicly on streets and sidewalks.
The Pine Bluff proposal reportedly would allow public drinking in from 2nd Avenue to 4th Avenue and State Street to Main.
As we have said before, entertainment districts raise serious concerns about public safety.
Cities like Memphis and New Orleans have had significant problems with violence in their entertainment districts, and public drinking and intoxication also raise concerns about drunk driving in surrounding neighborhoods.
If we really want to improve our communities, letting people drink on city streets and sidewalks simply is not the way to do it.