Arkansas Lottery Continues to Give Paltry Funding to Scholarships
Yesterday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of December.
The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in nearly $45.9 million last month, but gave college scholarships less than $6.7 million — 14.5% of all the money the Lottery made. Compare that with states like Louisiana that allocate 35% of their lottery’s revenue for education.
Since July the Arkansas Lottery has given scholarships less than 17 cents of every dollar it made.
For nearly ten years the Arkansas Lottery has demonstrated time and again that scholarship funding is not its highest priority. Things like administrative costs and contracts have continued to take precedence over increasing the budget for Arkansas’ students.
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% |
| Total | $259,090,386.39 | $43,757,320.81 | 16.9% |
