LITTLE ROCK — Less than 11 months after Arkansas voters approved the creation of a state lottery, the first tickets, offering prizes up to $100,000, went on sale at gas stations, convenience stores and other outlets across the state.
Legislators, state officials and others marked the occasion at 12:03 this morning at a Murphy USA gas station in west Little Rock. The ceremonial first tickets sold - five $2 Arkansas Riches scratch-off tickets - went to Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Jim Purcell.
Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who championed the constitutional amendment, approved by voters in November, that authorized the creation of the lottery, attended the ceremony and said he planned to buy a ticket after people waiting in line at the gas station bought theirs.
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"It's been a long road," he said. "There's been a lot of ups and downs in it but I feel good about this and I think, increasingly, the people of Arkansas will feel good about this."
The ticket sales started 91 days after Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue started to work on the lottery on June 29. Lottery officials said that set a world record for fastest startup, beating the 115 days set by North Carolina in 2006.
Four types of tickets, all scratch-offs, are now available at prices ranging from $1 to $5, with prizes ranging from $1 to $100,000, and the odds of winning anything running about 1 chance in 4. Typically lotteries return about 60 percent of their revenue in prizes. The four types of tickets are called 3 Times Lucky, Arkansas Riches, Cash Bonanza and Jumbo Bucks.
The lottery plans to start selling draw game tickets in October, with the sale of multistate Powerball game tickets starting Oct. 31.
More than 70 people were lined up outside the Murphy USA station at the corner of Chenal Parkway and Cantrell Road when the tickets went on sale. Tammy Kindred of Little Rock was first in line, having arrived at the station at 9:30 p.m. with her fiance, sister and brother-in-law.
"This is an exciting moment," she said. "It's good for college students and it's also good for us. Hopefully, I'll get the big money."
Lottery checkers - machines that scan a bar code to verify winning tickets - went on line at midnight at 1,500 outlets across the state, Passailaigue said. The only glitch was that a couple of convenience stores didn't get their tickets because they were delivered to the wrong address. Those stores should get their tickets later today.
"I'm happy to get started because this is about scholarships," he said. "All the buildup here for the first ticket means we can get scholarship money going."
Anticipation for the start of sales built throughout the day Sunday.
"Everytime somebody comes in, they ask about it," Ernest O'Neal, 23, said on a quiet Sunday afternoon from his perch behind the counter at the E-Z Mart at 1402 Rebsamen Park Road in Little Rock.
O'Neal doesn't expect demand to slack off, either, because the novelty won't wear off any time soon.
"Arkansas has never had a lottery," he said. "As soon as [the lottery] starts, everybody will try to get that payoff."
Business was slow at the EZ Mart on Sunday afternoon, but O'Neal predicted that beginning today, the line to the register will be out the door.
"Once we get that [lottery ticket dispenser] working, this store isn't going to be the same," he said.
Korin Layton, 33, a clerk at the Doublebee's Exxon at 2623 N. Main St. in North Little Rock, also believes business will pick up when the lottery comes online, but she fears she and other clerks will be overwhelmed.
"This is a busy store, anyway," Layton said. "It's supposed to pick up a lot more."
Other events are to be held today to mark the start of the lottery in Arkansas. They'll be in cities with colleges and universities.
One such event will be at 11 a.m. at the Satterfield 6 gas station on Dave Ward Drive in Conway. It will feature remarks by University of Central Arkansas President Allen Meadors, the commission said. Another will be in Pine Bluff, where University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Chancellor Lawrence A. Davis Jr. is to buy a lottery ticket and talk about the lottery's role in higher education.
So far, Arkansas cities involved in these events are Batesville, Blytheville, Clarksville, Conway, El Dorado, Malvern, McGehee, Mena, Morrilton, Newport, Pine Bluff, Pocahontas, Jonesboro and West Memphis, the commission said.
Earlier this month, four trucks delivered about 26 million Arkansas lottery tickets to a lottery vendor's warehouse in west Little Rock.
Scott Ross, general manager for Scientific Games International, said the $1, $2 and $5 tickets are worth about $48.24 million.
Passailaigue said he doesn't know how many tickets will be sold the first day because "you have five lottery states that surround us, and you just don't know how the population [of Arkansas] is going to react."
Arkansas last November adopted Amendment 87 to authorize the General Assembly to create state lotteries.
Estimates of how much the lottery will raise annually for scholarships range from $55 million to $120 million.
Estimates of its total proceeds range from about $185 million to more than $400 million.
A sponsor of the state's lottery laws, House Speaker Robbie Wills, has said he "wouldn't be upset if there were a few snags in the opening days" with "such a fast startup."
"Frankly, legislators thought we'd be doing good to begin sales by the end of the year," he said. "I think the proof will be in the pudding as the retailer merchants begin selling and the public begins buying tickets.
Information for this report was provided by Bill Simmons of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
To find out which retailers are selling lottery tickets, visit myarkansaslottery.com.
Arkansas, Pages 7, 9 on 09/28/2009