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.
The Arkansas Lottery gave students a paltry sum in FY19. Watch this video to learn more.
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% |
The Arkansas Lottery released its financial reports for the month of May last week.
The report shows the Lottery took in a little over $41.1 million, but paid out less than $8.4 million for scholarships — about 20% of the Lottery’s gross revenue for the month.
So far this fiscal year, the Arkansas Lottery has given student less than 18 cents out of every dollar it has made.
Nationwide, the typical state lottery pays out about 30% of its revenue to education.
Below is a breakdown of the Arkansas Lottery’s income and scholarship funds 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% |
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% |
Total | $477,823,296.11 | $84,928,957.54 | 17.8% |