Month: September 2014

Lottery Commissioners Express Reservations About Review

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, members of the Arkansas Legislature have approved bringing an outside group in to review the Arkansas Lottery, but lottery officials aren’t particularly thrilled about the idea.

Legislators want Camelot Global Services of Philadelphia to conduct a review of the Arkansas Lottery–presumably to look for inefficiencies and make recommendations on ways to improve the Arkansas Lottery. All told, the review is slated to cost about $169,500, and legislators want the Arkansas Lottery Commission to foot half the bill. According to the newspaper, however, at least 4 members of the Arkansas Lottery Commission have expressed reservations over paying for that.

Now, keep in mind that this is the same Lottery Commission that has approved expenditure after expenditure in the face of declining scholarship proceeds. This summer alone, the Arkansas Lottery: (more…)

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Louisiana Lottery Makes Less Money, Pays Out More Than Arkansas

For 5 years, now, we have written about what an exercise in futility the Arkansas Lottery has turned out to be.

It pulls hundreds of millions of dollars out of Arkansas’ economy, hurts families, and pays back far too little money in scholarship funding.

Lottery officials have reduced the lottery’s budget for scholarships to record-lows for Fiscal Year 2015, citing lagging ticket sales as the reason. If that’s the case, though, then how is it Louisiana’s state lottery has consistently paid out more in education funding than Arkansas despite taking in less money in lottery ticket sales?

Here are the Numbers.

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