Video: Arkansas Lottery Spending Thousands on Travel
The Arkansas Lottery still spends thousands of dollars every month reimbursing its employees for their mileage as they travel around the state.
Watch this video to learn more.
State Lottery Spends Another $7K on Travel in September
Based on information from the state’s transparency website, the Arkansas Lottery spent approximately $7,000 reimbursing employees for mileage expenses in September, and a little over $30,000 total on mileage since July 1.
State employees receive 42 cents for every mile they travel on state business in their personal vehicles; some employees average hundreds of dollars every month in reimbursement for their mileage. The Arkansas Lottery probably could save a lot of money by using state vehicles for travel instead of paying employees to drive their personal vehicles.
The Arkansas Lottery spends about 70% – 71% of its revenue on prizes for lottery players. About 16% – 17% goes to scholarships. The rest of the money pays for Lottery operations.
For perspective, the typical state lottery spends about 60% of its revenue on prizes and 30% on education. If the Lottery followed this model, it would be able to provide millions of dollars in additional scholarship funding.
Eleven years running, the Arkansas Lottery continues to budget its money poorly.
Photo Credit: Airtuna08 at English Wikipedia [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
Lottery Spends 16% of Revenue on Education, 71% on Prizes
On Friday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of August.
The report indicates the state-run lottery made nearly $49.7 million last month, but budgeted less than $7.9 million for scholarships — about 15.8% of the Lottery’s revenue.
However, the Arkansas Lottery spent 70.5% of its money on prizes for lottery players in August; in July, 71.6% of the Lottery’s revenue went to prizes.
As we have written many times, the Arkansas Lottery spends an inordinate amount of money on prizes, compared to most state lotteries.
The average state lottery spends about 60% of its budget on prizes and 30% on education.
The Arkansas Lottery could provide millions of dollars more in scholarship funding every year if it would rework its budget to spend less on prizes and more on students.
Below is a breakdown of lottery revenue, scholarship spending, and prizes since the state’s new fiscal year began last July.
Scholarship Spending
| Month | Gross Lottery Revenue | Paid to Scholarships | % Gross Revenue |
| July | $49,780,369.99 | $8,592,573.93 | 17.3% |
| August | 49,672,105.04 | 7,862,917.44 | 15.8% |
| Total | $99,452,475.03 | $16,455,491.37 | 16.5% |
Prize Allocation
| Month | Gross Lottery Revenue | Total Prizes | % Going to Prizes |
| July | $49,780,369.99 | $35,641,717.48 | 71.6% |
| August | 49,672,105.04 | 35,023,856.83 | 70.5% |
| Total | $99,452,475.03 | $70,665,574.31 | 71.1% |