Arkansas Lottery Ends Year Ahead in Sales

LITTLE ROCK—July 2, 2012—At midnight Saturday, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery ended its 2012 Fiscal Year more than $10 Million ahead of its previous annual sales. The Arkansas Lottery Commission Monday announced yearly sales of almost $475 Million—unaudited results were $474,076,726. With a week to go before the ALC staff completes the June scholarship accounting process, Lottery officials are taking the good sales news as a positive sign that scholarship dollars will flow.

“The people of Arkansas voted in favor of starting a lottery because they wanted our citizens to have a better chance of going to college and getting a degree,” ALC Chairman Ben Pickard said. “Ten million dollars more in sales was not easy to achieve. I commend the great work of the lottery staff for getting through a difficult year and keeping their eye on the ball to get this done. All of us know our only mission is to maximize scholarship dollars.”

Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said he was optimistic that scholarship funding this year will outstrip those of previous years. “We’ve done a little better in the sale of our more profitable draw tickets. Three years of experience has taught us how to best focus advertising dollars and the preferences of Arkansas players. With the 64,708 scholarships produced thus far, it appears the people of Arkansas are getting more familiar with their lottery and see that it is doing a lot of good,” Woosley said. “I don’t want to get ahead of our financial people, but I think we’re going to see a healthy total for this year’s scholarship fund.”

The Lottery in Arkansas sold its first ticket September 29, 2009, meaning its first Fiscal Year (2010) accounted for nine months of sales. The total that year was $373 Million with scholarship funding of $82.8 Million. Fiscal Year 2011 saw sales of $464,019,351, producing scholarship funding of $94.2 Million.

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FY2010

Total - $373,127,552

Instants - $324,641,494 (87%)

Terminal-generated - $48,486,058 (13%)

Scholarship Fund: $82,799,809

FY2011

Total - $464,019,351

Instants - $390,114,991 (84.1%)

Terminal-generated - $73,904,360 (15.9%)

Scholarship Fund: $94,229,349

FY2012 (unaudited)

Total - $474,076,725.50

Instants - $392,345,002 (82.8%)

Terminal-generated - $81,731,723.50 (17.2%)

Scholarship Fund First 11 Months: $88,403,303 (will send year-end figures 7/10/2012)