Hold on to your wallets. The new, improved Arkansas Lottery is coming your way.
The ailing lottery isn't bringing in the money it once was, so state lawmakers are gambling on a consulting firm to find answers. They're laying down $169,500 for Camelot Global Services to conduct a study. That's cold, hard cash. The company wouldn't take payment in lottery tickets, because everyone knows that's a loser.
But Camelot's job will be to figure out ways to convince Arkansans it's not a loser. After all, someone's got to win, right? More, by the way, have to lose for this whole concept to work.
Camelot is charged with recommending ways to reverse the downward trend in lottery proceeds. If I were a gambling man, and I have been known to be on occasion, I'd bet $2 they'll recommend more gaming. And more aggressive gaming. And more gaming in more locations.
Keep in mind our own Arkansas Lottery Commission and staff tried to remedy the downturn earlier with a proposal for so-called monitor gaming. Such games are keno-style systems through which numbers are drawn every few minutes, allowing gamblers sitting in participating locations to place bets, win or lose, then place more bets on a continuous cycle.
State lawmakers may be interested in finding a solution to the hole in the bucket, but monitor games wasn't it -- yet. In April, the Legislature's lottery oversight committee expressed opposition to that style of games. The next day, the lottery commission authorized its staff to advance plans for rolling out the games this month. But lawmakers in July established a moratorium on those kinds of games until March 13, about a month after the 2015 regular session of the General Assembly convenes in Little Rock.
The problem is the lottery hasn't sustained its earnings, which are used to fund state scholarships. Last month, the commission approved a revised budget that reduced projections for scholarship money by $3 million to $78.2 million. Lottery bean-counters predict fiscal 2015 proceeds will be the lowest of any year since the lottery started draining people's wallets in 2009.
Voters in 2008 approved the statewide lottery system at least partly based on the promise that money raised would go to a good cause -- namely, scholarships for Arkansans going to two- or four-year colleges. As the lottery commission and supportive lawmakers gear up for a push for a more aggressive lottery, they're also making sure people in Arkansas keep those stories about student support in mind.
At Saturday's Razorback game in Fayetteville, Arkansas State Red Wolves' game in Jonesboro, the University of Central Arkansas Bears' game in Conway and the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff Lions' game, lottery officials made on-field presentations "celebrating" the impact of the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships, which are funded by lottery proceeds. On the plus side of the ledger, the lottery has generated more than $450 million for scholarships for more than 150,000 students at 47 colleges and universities.
Count on lottery officials to continue those feel-good stories front and center in the months ahead. When the Camelot study comes back, they'll need all that good will to help convince Arkansas residents and state lawmakers that the ends justify the means.
It should be noted that Camelot Global Services, operator of the United Kingdom's lottery, got the contract for studying Arkansas' lottery without having to bid on it after a strong push from State Rep. Jimmy Hickey of Texarkana. Hickey has been critical of lottery operations and was among those fighting to keep the monitor games from implementation.
Camelot got close to privatizing Pennsylvania's state lottery and this no-bid arrangement in Arkansas may be the first steps toward privatization in our fair state. My guess is a private company would become significantly more aggressive in its operation of the lottery than a state-appointed commission. What would that look like? Instant lotto at the gas pumps? Lottery vending machines?
And our state will amp up its efforts to draw people into gambling, to bet more, and more often.
But, hey, it's for a good cause, right?
GREG HARTON IS OPINION PAGE EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Commentary on 09/22/2014