Arkansas Lottery Rolls Out New, Expensive Scratch-Off Tickets
The Arkansas Lottery is rolling out new scratch-off tickets this month — including one that sells for $20 per ticket.
As we have written many times, instant ticket sales make up most of the Arkansas Lottery’s income.
However, scratch-off tickets are controversial, because they are thought to be more likely to contribute to problem gambling and gambling addiction.
A 2015 study in Canada found a link between problem gambling and instant lottery tickets, writing,
It is possible that problem gamblers are more attracted to instant win tickets than lottery tickets because instant win tickets provide immediate feedback. Some authors have even described instant win tickets as “paper slot machines” (Griffiths, 2002). Therefore, instant win tickets might be considered a more exciting form of lottery gambling, which may help explain why it attracts a different type of gambler than [ordinary] lottery tickets do.
Scratch-off tickets that sell for $20 each are especially problematic, because they entice players to spend — and lose — larger amounts of money each time they play one of these lottery tickets.
For years, the Arkansas Lottery has followed a pattern of regularly rolling out new scratch-off tickets and budgeting upwards of 69% or 70% of its revenue for prizes in an ongoing effort to prop up lottery ticket sales.
In fiscal year 2023, the Arkansas Lottery took in an astounding $608 million. It spent approximately 19% of that revenue on college scholarships and 69% of its revenue on prizes.
For perspective, the typical state lottery spends about 60% of its revenue on prizes and 30% on education.
The Arkansas Lottery’s over-reliance on big prizes, long odds, and expensive scratch-off tickets makes it an especially predatory form of gambling.
Family Council has supported legislation in the past that would restructure the Arkansas Lottery’s budget to increase spending on education. The state-run lottery could provides millions of dollars more in scholarship funding if it simply would reduce its prize budget and increase its scholarship budget to align with other state lotteries.
Unfortunately, there simply doesn’t seem to be much impetus to do that.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
Updated: Satanic Temple Places Pro-Abortion Billboards in Arkansas
The Satanic Temple has placed pro-abortion billboards in Arkansas.
The billboards come as the group has dropped its lawsuit against Lamar Advertising Company over a set of pro-abortion billboards the company rejected in 2020.
In 2020 the Satanic Temple proposed four billboard designs that falsely claimed The Satanic Temple’s “religious abortion ritual averts many state restrictions” on abortion and that “abortions save lives.” The group reportedly wanted Lamar Advertising Company to place the billboards near pregnancy resource centers in Arkansas.
Lamar Advertising Company understandably rejected the billboard designs for being “misleading and offensive.” The Satanic Temple sued Lamar in federal court as a result.
On Tuesday attorneys for Lamar and the Satanic Temple filed court documents stating, “The parties have resolved all issues between them, and there remain no issues to be decided by this Court.”
On Tuesday Family Council also learned that the Satanic Temple had paid to place at least one billboard in Northwest Arkansas claiming that “Abortions Save Lives!”
The billboard advertises “Free Religious Abortion Care,” and it provides an address for a website that tells how to get abortion drugs in New Mexico.
Attorneys for Lamar Advertising Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit and the new pro-abortion billboard.
It’s worth pointing out that the Satanic Temple is an atheist organization with a long history of stirring up controversy in Arkansas.
The group has opposed Arkansas’ monument honoring the Ten Commandments and is part of a lawsuit to have the monument removed from the capitol grounds.
In August of 2018 the Satanic Temple held a small protest in front of the State Capitol, and parked a flatbed trailer holding a 7½-foot statue of baphomet — a satanic figure — in front of the Capitol Building for a short time.
Abortion doesn’t “save lives” — it ends lives. It takes the life of an unborn baby, and it hurts women. The Satanic Temple simply has no business making these outrageous, pro-abortion claims on billboards in Arkansas.
Updated 1:00pm Thursday, August 10: Family Council has confirmed that the Satanic Temple has placed multiple pro-abortion billboards in Arkansas. This story has been updated to reflect that fact.