State Lottery Paid Scholarships Eighteen Cents On the Dollar in FY18: Report

Arkansas Lottery

Yesterday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of June.

June marks the end of Fiscal Year 2018 for the Lottery. According to the report, the Lottery took in nearly $37.7 million last month, but paid out less than $13.4 million for scholarships.

However, more than half the money the Lottery paid to scholarships actually came from the Lottery’s pool of unclaimed prize money. If this unclaimed prize money had not been available, $6.3 million — less than 17% of its revenue — would have been all that Arkansas’ college students would have received in June.

Altogether, the Arkansas Lottery’s gross revenue for Fiscal Year 2018 was the highest in its history. But only 18.4 cents of every dollar the Lottery made in FY18 went to scholarships. The rest went to salaries, overhead, marketing, prizes, contract fees, and other expenses.

For perspective, the typical lottery pays at least 30% of its revenue to education.

Since Day One, the Arkansas Lottery has been a major failure. It has rolled out more gambling more quickly than any other lottery we know, and the funding it allocates for education is among the worst in the nation.

Below is a breakdown of Lottery revenue for Fiscal Year 2018.

Month Gross Lottery Revenue Paid to Scholarships % Gross Revenue
July $36,885,396.81 $6,661,762.99 18.1%
August 49,320,459.23 8,912,741.54 18.1%
September 36,405,731.14 6,755,333.93 18.6%
October 39,802,740.53 5,667,305.74 14.2%
November 36,186,107.78 6,691,228.00 18.5%
December 44,716,219.32 6,583,355.77 14.7%
January, 2018 44,063,056.11 8,230,861.00 18.7%
February 39,389,927.57 5,947,647.50 15.1%
March 53,523,320.61 7,945,570.02 14.8%
April 42,064,194.78 7,192,997.10 17.1%
May 40,447,182.69 8,037,624.80 19.9%
June 37,685,874.97 13,364,612.64 35.5%
Total $500,490,211.54 $91,991,041.03 18.4%

Photo Credit: Roman Oleinik [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

READ MORE

Arkansas Lottery Continues to Give Scholarships Less Than 20 Cents On The Dollar

Arkansas Lottery

Last week the Arkansas Lottery posted its revenue and expenses for the month of May.

The report shows the Arkansas Lottery took in nearly $40.5 million last month, but paid out about $8 million for scholarships–19.9% of its total income for the month.

So far this year the Arkansas Lottery has given a paltry 17% of its income to college scholarships. The average state lottery gives 30%.

Below is a breakdown of lottery income and scholarship allocation so far this fiscal year.

Month Gross Lottery Revenue Paid to Scholarships % Gross Revenue
July $36,885,396.81 $6,661,762.99 18.1%
August 49,320,459.23 8,912,741.54 18.1%
September 36,405,731.14 6,755,333.93 18.6%
October 39,802,740.53 5,667,305.74 14.2%
November 36,186,107.78 6,691,228.00 18.5%
December 44,716,219.32 6,583,355.77 14.7%
January, 2018 44,063,056.11 8,230,861.00 18.7%
February 39,389,927.57 5,947,647.50 15.1%
March 53,523,320.61 7,945,570.02 14.8%
April 42,064,194.78 7,192,997.10 17.1%
May 40,447,182.69 8,037,624.80 19.9%
Total $462,804,336.57 $78,626,428.39 17.0%

Photo Credit: By Roman Oleinik [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

READ MORE