Arkansas Lottery – Page 63

Louisiana Lottery Makes Less Money, Pays Out More Than Arkansas

Sep 26, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

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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Lottery Proponents Don’t Understand Meaning of “Success”

Sep 19, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

How do you define a “successful” state lottery?

Is it the lottery that sells the most tickets? The lottery that has the highest gross revenue? What about the lottery that awards the most scholarships? Or the lottery that does the least amount of harm to the local economy?

I would argue there really is no such thing as a “successful” state lottery, because lotteries pull money out of the local community and drag the economy down. That said, however, I really don’t think lottery proponents have a clear understanding of what a “successful” state lottery is, even under their own terms.

When the Arkansas Lottery was pitched to voters, proponents promised it would be a “world class” lottery “for education.” It would “generate” money for college scholarships and help more Arkansans go to college.

They even named it the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery. So in theory, the way you measure the Arkansas Lottery’s success is by the amount of scholarship money it pays out, right?

But that’s not the way lottery officials seem to measure its success at all. They are focused almost exclusively on gross ticket sales. This was underscored by a lottery consultant from Philadelphia who told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, yesterday, “Our objective … is to think about how we can get as many people to play the lottery as possible and spending really small amounts of money. We believe there is an opportunity for strong long-term sustainable, responsible growth.” (more…)

Will the Lottery Be Selling Tickets to University Students Saturday?

Sep 18, 2014JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

Will the Arkansas Lottery be selling lottery tickets to university students this Saturday? That’s a question raised by a press release from Lottery officials.

Earlier this year the Arkansas Lottery secured funding to do promotional activities on college campuses in Arkansas. We asked, at that time, if the Lottery meant to sell lottery tickets to students. Yesterday, Lottery officials elaborated on their plans, saying that this weekend “[s]tudents, parents, faculty, alumni and football fans attending select home games can stop by the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery pre-game celebration area for games, giveaways and information about the scholarship program.”

Now, one has to ask just what types of “games” and “giveaways” they mean. Will they include lottery tickets?

This is important, because research consistently indicates teens and young adults are among those most prone to develop gambling problems.

Lottery officials may think that if they get college students to start buying lottery tickets now, those students will be lottery “customers” for years to come. However, micro-targeting teens and young adults is irresponsible. It has the potential to create more gambling addiction and could lead to ruined lives, down the road.

We’ll probably know more about the Lottery’s intentions after Saturday. In the meantime, we will continue to monitor this situation.

Photo Credit: “Gameday2” by Rmcclen at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia by Ronhjones. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.