On Friday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of February.
The Arkansas Lottery grossed more than $41 million, but gave scholarships less than $8.2 million — just 20 cents out of every dollar the Lottery made.
The Arkansas Lottery consistently has paid out pathetic sums to college scholarships since Day One.
While the average state lottery gives about 30% of its gross revenue to state programs, Arkansas’ gives about 17% – 18%. As a result, college scholarship funding never has lived up to the promises made when the Lottery came to the state a decade ago.
But today the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration issued a fiscal impact statement confirming that the Lottery Office only has to do one thing to provide more money for college scholarships: Give a larger percentage of its gross revenue to the state’s Academic Challenge Scholarship fund.
The report was issued in response to S.B. 387, which requires the Lottery to give 25% of its gross revenue to college scholarships by Fiscal Year 2025.
According to the report, if this bill passes, scholarship funds will increase from $99.9 million next year to $124.9 million by 2025.
Below is a breakdown of lottery revenue and scholarship funding so far this fiscal year.
| Month | Gross Lottery Revenue | Paid to Scholarships | % Gross Revenue |
| July | $42,413,352.70 | $5,066,628.73 | 11.9% |
| August | 40,343,279.62 | 6,175,998.40 | 15.3% |
| September | 35,198,809.72 | 7,783,450.82 | 22.1% |
| October | 57,575,285.62 | 11,259,040.31 | 19.6% |
| November | 37,700,016.00 | 6,821,411.01 | 18.1% |
| December | 45,859,642.73 | 6,650,791.54 | 14.5% |
| January, 2019 | 40,574,813.28 | 7,848,495.62 | 19.3% |
| February | 41,060,111.75 | 8,198,257.31 | 20.0% |
| Total | $340,725,311.42 | $59,804,073.74 | 17.6% |
