Tag: Arkansas Lottery

Arkansas Lottery Gives Less than 20% of Revenue to Scholarships in April

Today the Arkansas Lottery released its figures for the month of April, 2016.

The report shows lottery revenue came in at around $37.5 million, and the Lottery put nearly $7.4 million toward college scholarships–about 19.7% of its total revenue for the month of April.

Sadly, 19.7% is one of the Arkansas Lottery’s better figures. So far this fiscal year we have seen months in which only 11% or 14% of the Lottery’s gross revenue went to scholarships. By contrast, the average state lottery allocates closer to 30% of gross revenue for education; our neighbors to the south in Louisiana allocate 35%.

What’s striking, however, is in looking at the report, the Arkansas Lottery actually spent $458,718.44 more than it made in the month of April in order to achieve that 19.7% figure. Had the Arkansas Lottery not spent more money than it took in over the course of the month, scholarship funding would have been about $6,934,118.56 (about 18.5% of Lottery revenue for the month).

Below is a breakdown of Lottery sales and scholarship funding for Fiscal Year 2016, which began last July and ends next month.

So far the Lottery has put about $67.5 million toward scholarships–about 17.6% of its gross revenue– since last July.

Based on these figures, we project the Arkansas Lottery will allocate somewhere around $85 million for scholarships, total, this fiscal year–once again, far less than the $100 million lottery proponents claimed time and time again a state-run lottery would provide in scholarship funding each year.

READ MORE

Arkansas Lottery Budgets Paltry 14.2% for Scholarships in March

Today the Arkansas Lottery published financial reports for the month of March. The documents show the Arkansas Lottery took in approximately $40.6 million in March, but paid less than $5.8 million to scholarships–in other words, only about 14.2% of the Lottery’s gross revenue actually went to scholarships.

Since Fiscal Year 2016 started in July, the Arkansas Lottery has grossed more than $345 million, but only $60.1 million has gone to scholarships–about 17.4% of its total revenue.

Below is a breakdown of the Arkansas Lottery’s figures for Fiscal Year 2016.

READ MORE

UPDATED: In 78 Months AR Lottery Makes $2.9 Billion, Pays Less Than 20% to Students

Recently we wrote how the Arkansas Lottery allocated a paltry 11% of its gross revenue for college scholarships last month. While that is one of the worst months in the Lottery’s history, looking at the past six and a half years, the Arkansas Lottery has failed time and again to put students first on its list of priorities.

We compiled numbers going all the way back to the Lottery’s start date using financial reports published on the Arkansas Lottery’s website. Since September 2009, the Arkansas Lottery has made approximately $2,881,137,177.93, but only $572,575,775.55 went to college scholarships.

In other words, since the Lottery’s inception, only 19.9% of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery’s gross revenue has actually gone to college scholarships. The rest has gone to vendor contracts, overhead and operating expenses, prizes, and so on.

Below is a breakdown of the numbers.

A Few Quick Facts on the Lottery

• Since September 2009, the Arkansas Lottery has grossed, on average, approximately $36.9 million every month, but has paid out only about $7.3 million in scholarship funding each month.
• The Arkansas Lottery has earned, on average, about $14 every second since September 2009.
• During the month of February alone, the Arkansas Lottery grossed nearly $40.8 million; that’s more than $16 every second, on average.
• The Arkansas Lottery has yet to live up to its promise of paying $100 million per year to scholarships.

Updated: This post has been updated since it was first published to include an additional six months worth of financial data from the Arkansas Lottery.

READ MORE