Arkansas Lottery – Page 69

Report: Lottery Still Pays 20-Cents on the Dollar for Scholarships

Dec 4, 2013JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

The Arkansas Lottery Commission released a report this week showing the Lottery still only allocates, at best, about 20-cents in scholarship revenue for every dollar it makes selling lottery tickets.

According to Lottery Commission reports for the month of October, the Arkansas Lottery took in $33,271,398.30 in revenue, but only paid out $6,773,936.78 in college scholarships.

Moreover, lottery officials indicated to reporters from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the net proceeds may have actually been bolstered by unclaimed prize money the lottery has on hand (that is, prize money people have won but never picked up) and by the timing of recent lottery payouts. In other words, the $6.8 million may have actually been more than you might expect simply because of when the lottery happened to pay some of its bills and because a lot of people haven’t stopped by to pick up their winnings.

So let’s do the math: $6,773,936.78 / $33,271,398.30 = .2036 or 20.4%.

So for every $1 the Arkansas lottery commission made in October, about 20 cents went to college scholarships. The other 80 cents were spent elsewhere.

At this rate, the Arkansas Lottery won’t meet its scholarship goals for 2014. (more…)

Arkansas Lottery Uses Mega Millions to Deceive

Nov 20, 2013Jerry1 CommentArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

The following blog post is by Family Council staff member Ken Yang.

Ok, so it has been awhile since I’ve written a post about the Arkansas Lottery and Bishop Woosley’s blatant disregard for our students, but when they consistently mislead the public I believe someone should always speak up. This past month the lottery has changed its rules and odds of the lottery game Mega Millions, and just this past week I heard a radio ad telling the public how much better a chance you have of winning now. Well, that’s a bit misleading, too.

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Lottery Officials ‘Generally Satisfied’ as Revenue, Scholarships Drop

Sep 17, 2013JerryArkansas LotteryArkansas Lottery

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, lottery ticket sales and scholarship money fell during the month of August, compared to last year.

Ticket sales for August, 2013, were roughly half-a-million dollars less than August, 2012. More significantly, scholarship revenue–the Arkansas Lottery’s purpose–fell by $791,000.

Despite this news, the Director of the Arkansas Lottery told the Lottery Commission on Monday, “We are generally satisfied with the position we are in at this point.”

The Arkansas Lottery Commission also decided Monday to seek input from the legislative oversight committee on raising the mileage reimbursement it pays lottery employees–an added cost of about $67,000 extra each year.

One has to wonder how the Lottery can be “satisfied” with lagging sales and falling scholarship revenue, and why anyone would think tacking on additional expenses in the midst of all that is a good idea. If the Lottery has an extra $67,000 lying around, wouldn’t that money be better spent on scholarships? That is, after all, the reason the Arkansas Lottery exists in the first place.

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