NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — The entire state of Arkansas wins under an agreement that the Arkansas Lottery secured recently. Georgia-based vendor Scientific Games agreed to a contract revision under which it will receive 1.81 percent of scratch-off ticket sales, down from the former rate of 1.92 percent.
Insignificant though that might seem, lottery director Bishop Woosley estimated this change will save the lottery more than $400,000 per year, assuming scratch-off sales remain at their usual level.
That extra money means more college scholarships for our state’s students.
Scientific Games also agreed to pay the lottery $2 million in cash by the end of this month as an incentive for maintaining some of the terms of its previous contract with the lottery.
This contract revision did not come easily. Woosley said it took “the better part of a couple of months” to negotiate it. Kudos to Woosley on a job well done. Kudos to Scientific Games, too, for coming around to the new deal.
Woosley was hired in February to lead the Arkansas Lottery, following the departure of Ernie Passailaigue.
Woosley has been in charge only a short time, but already he’s proving to be a more eff ective manager than his predecessor. He’s already improved the lottery’s bottom line, not only by revising the Scientific Games contract, but also by refusing to fi ll either of the vacant vice president positions in the payroll he inherited.
We haven’t been enthusiastic about all of Woosley’s ideas, however.
One of his ideas was to seek police powers for the lottery.
Woosley had argued that with police powers, lottery-security oftcials could more easily investigate lottery-related crimes and develop case files for a prosecutor rather than rely on local law enforcement agencies to do the job.
But we have confi dence that local law enforcement agencies are up to the task. It’s probably better that they do it, too, precisely because they’re not connected to the lottery.
Another of Woosley’s ideas was to allow the use of debit cards to buy lottery tickets. He has said that most states with lotteries allow tickets to be purchased by debit card.
We don’t have strong feelings about this idea. Consumers use debit cards to buy all kinds of things these days. And unlike credit cards, debit cards at least require the consumer to have an account from which money can be drawn on the spot.
Then again, does it really need to be any easier to buy lottery tickets? We doubt it.
The Arkansas Lottery Commission won’t pursue the Legislature’s approval of either of these ideas during the 2013 legislative session, commission chairman Ben Pickard said last week. That seems wise.
After a sometimes turbulent start under Passailaigue, the lottery just needs to focus on the fundamentals of its operation. Woosley seems to have the best of intentions, but the Lottery Commission might have to rein him in from time to time.