CARDWELL, Mo. — Arkansas' lottery starts selling tickets Monday, and so Terry Cook of Trumann plans to stop making nearly 40-mile trips to Cardwell, where she's been buying Missouri lottery tickets every few months.
The 45-year-old widow purchases 15-20 $1 scratch-off tickets each visit.
She intends to spend even more on lottery tickets in Arkansas.
"It could be very addicting," Cook said in Cardwell after buying Missouri tickets Wednesday at Mr. T's convenience store, the No. 1 lottery ticket-seller among Missouri retailers. The store, just across the state line, sold$5.998 million in tickets last fiscal year.
A sign with red lights above the lottery counter reads: "Powerball $129 m".
"It's taking that gamble to win some money," said Cook, who wore a Trumann Pee Wee Football Wildcats Tshirt and bluejeans.
Arkansas lottery officials expect to have 1,551 or so retailers selling tickets Monday. There should be even more of them later.
Other Arkansans, Scott Williams of Black Oak in Craighead County among them, said he will continue buying Missouri tickets while also trying their luck in the Arkansas lottery.
To find out which retailers are selling lottery tickets, visit myarkansaslottery.com.
Williams, 25, a farm la-borer, drives about 15 miles to Cardwell perhaps five times a month to eat at Mr. T's, where he buys about $20 worth of scratch-offs each visit.
Being so close to the state line, he said, he'll purchase from both lotteries.
Ernie Passailaigue, executive director of the Arkansas Lottery Commission, mentioned the uncertainty of border-area players when he declined to predict how many Arkansas lottery tickets will be sold Monday.
"We should do fine," he said Friday. "I don't want to inflate expectations."
Five of Arkansas' neighboring states - Missouri, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas - have lotteries. The sixth neighbor, Mississippi, has no lottery but has casinos.
Predicting first-day sales can be dicey. The South Carolina lottery's first-day sales in 2002 were initially estimated at $1.8 million, said Carl Stent, deputy director of legal services for South Carolina's lottery.
But the average audited sales for the first month were $2.4 million per day, or about 60 cents per capita per day, and that's about as close as one can get to an exact figure for the first day, he said.
There was a cross-border element in South Carolina's figures, said Passailaigue. He noted that about 30 percent of South Carolina's lottery players came from North Carolina.
Some Arkansans are taking a wait-and-see attitude about Arkansas' lottery. One of them is Judy Cheesman of Paragould, who drives to Mr. T's in Cardwell about four times a week. The 56-yearold retiree buys about $28 in scratch-off and Powerball tickets each week.
She said she wants to see what games Arkansas offers before deciding whether to buy in both states or only one.
"If they have the same games, we'll stay in Arkansas," Cheesman said.
"It's about time" Arkansas had its own lottery, she said.
The lottery's net proceeds are to be used for college scholarships, and Cheesman said she's "sure our schools can use" the money.
"Maybe it can lower some of our taxes," she added.
When Arkansas' lottery starts Monday, that will mean that it got going 91 days afterPassailaigue started to work on it on June 29. That would be a world record for fastest startup, according to lottery officials. The record is 115 days set by North Carolina in 2006.
The kickoff day is more than three years after Bill Halter proposed creation of a state lottery. He did that on Jan. 21, 2006, on a cold day on the front steps of the state Capitol as he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination for governor. He eventually dropped out of that race and ran, instead, for lieutenant governor, which he won.
Later he championed a proposed constitutional amendment that voters adopted last November. It now is Amendment 87. It authorized the General Assembly to create lotteries to pay for scholarships for Arkansans to attend colleges and universities in the state. The General Assembly approved setting up the lottery earlier this year, and the setting-up process began.
When Halter proposed a lottery for scholarships, Mike Beebe was a Democratic gubernatorial candidate and said he didn't have strong feelings regarding lotteries. In 2006, he was elected governor.
Beebe has said he voted against Amendment 87. He later signed the lottery legislation that the General Assembly approved.
Beebe doesn't plan to purchase any lottery tickets, said Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample.
"It's not anything that holds any personal interest to him, playing the lottery," DeCample said. He said the governor doesn't recall ever purchasing a lottery ticket.
Halter plans to buy at least one on Monday.
"The big thing for us always has been the scholarships," he said. "The prospect of having a very large pool of funds that [will] be voluntarily provided by Arkansans to fund scholarships for Arkansas students is very gratifying."
But the lottery also has opponents.
One of its main critics is Jerry Cox, leader of the Arkansas Family Council. He said he's worried about the state being in the gambling business and "encouraging people who don't need to gamble what little money they have, and ultimately it is going to cause a lot more harm than good."
No state has ever repealed a lottery, which probably means Arkansas is stuck withhaving one forever, Cox said.
"I find it disappointing there appear to be so many church attenders who just shrug at the idea of a state lottery," he said. "They seem to not really care what the state does to some of our most vulnerable people."
Halter said the lottery "should be viewed as a form of entertainment," and Passailaigue said the lottery's ads urge lottery ticket buyers to "play responsibly."
"People shouldn't be viewing this as either a retirement income or shouldn't be spending dollars that they can't afford to spend," Halter said. "But we know already that tens of thousands of Arkansans purchase lottery tickets in other states."
The biggest beneficiaries are going to come from lower-income and middle-income families in Arkansas, he said, referring to scholarshiprecipients.
He also noted that about 63 percent of voters supported Amendment 87.
Many people buy lottery tickets. A few win big. Donny Easley of Berryville, owner of a backhoe business, won $1 million in Missouri's lottery. He chose the $690,000 cash value of the $1 million prize and ended up getting about $490,000 after taxes were deducted.
In retrospect, he said Friday, he should have invested most of the money in certificates of deposits rather than in his business, which has been hurt by the recession. He also said he shouldn't have changed his lifestyle.
He's glad Arkansas is getting into the lottery game, he said.
"I would like to win again," he said.
While some retailers have jumped at the chance to add lottery ticket sales to their operations in Arkansas, others haven't. Peggy Louks, operations manager for the Galaxy convenience store and Shell gas station in Bald Knob, decided not to join in.
"We are not against the lottery," she said. "It will help the state, but at this operation we don't believe it's necessary."
Louks said she worried that selling lottery tickets would interfere with her employees serving their customers and that the costs would outweigh the benefits.
Passailaigue has estimated that lottery retailers will receive an average of up to 6.5 percent of lottery ticket sales in commissions.
Paragould is about eight miles from Cardwell, Mo., and15 Paragould retail locations are licensed to sell Arkansas lottery tickets, according to the lottery's Web site, myArkansaslottery.com.
Wendie Parnell, leader of the Dodge store that sells gas and fried chicken in Paragould, said her customers "are demanding" that the store sell lottery tickets. They would be upset if it didn't, she said.
"Whether we make a lot on it or not, we wouldn't have a choice whether to have it or not," she said. "Obviously, they all think they are going to get rich."
Christie Hall, assistant manager of a Jordan's Kwik Stop in Paragould, said she's excited about the store selling tickets.
"It's going to help keep money in Arkansas, where it needs to be," she said. "I think it's going to bring more business because they come in to get cigarettes. They get a drink. It's a convenience store. It's the way it works."
Arkansas lottery sales are expected to reduce sales in the neighboring states' lotteries. The Missouri lottery expects to lose $25 million to $30 million in ticket sales, said Missouri lottery spokesman Susan Goedde.
Bonida Poynor of Cardwell owns Mr. T's. She said "all the state-line places will suffer their loss in sales."
"But we hope to keep our loyal customers who have played the lottery here for a long time," she said.
The Oklahoma lottery expects to lose $10 million to $12 million a year. The Louisiana lottery expects to lose $1.5 million to $5 million, said a spokesman for the lotteries.
Freddy's One Stop in Roland, Okla., sold about $1.1 million in lottery tickets in the past fiscal year, ranking No. 1 among Oklahoma retailers in lottery ticket sales, said Rollo Redburn, director of administration for the Oklahoma lottery.
The Texas lottery hasn't projected how much it couldlose in ticket sales from the Arkansas lottery, said a spokesman for the Texas Lottery Commission.
The Stateline Citgo in Texarkana, Texas, has been the No. 1 lottery retailer in Texas, selling $3.6 million in tickets in 2007, according to the Texas Lottery Commission.
En Kim, owner of Stateline Citgo, said she believes that her store will lose "a little bit" but isn't sure whether it will affect her overall business.
When it starts Monday, the Arkansas lottery will be selling four types of scratchoffs, costing $1 to $5, for prizes ranging from $1 to $100,000, and odds of winning anything are at about one in four. The types are 3 Times Lucky, Arkansas Riches, Cash Bonanza and Jumbo Bucks.
Estimates of how much in tickets the lottery will sell each year range from $185 million to more than $400 million. Projections about how much will go to scholarships range from $55 million a year to $120 million a year.
Under Act 606 of 2009, the Legislature is to set the scholarship amounts in the legislative session that starts Feb. 8.
Powerball tickets aren't to go on sale in Arkansas until Oct. 31. Generally, it costs $1 in Powerball for a shot at an average jackpot of $136 million, but the odds of winning it are about one in 195 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. Thirty other states and the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands participate in Powerball. Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee lotteries participate in Powerball. Texas, instead, sells Mega Millions tickets, which cost $1 with the odds ofwinning the minimum jackpot of $12 million being one in 175 million.
Passailaigue has said he expects problems to arise as the lottery starts up. Most "will be retailer-specific that require a technician to make adjustments or an explanation on the help-line on what to do," he said.
He expects more than 3,000 retailer employees to have been trained by the time ticket sales start Monday.
But, he said, "just because people have been trained doesn't mean they are Ph.Ds in lottery."
Front Section, Pages 1, 14 on 09/27/2009