Guest writer

A pathetic failure

Arkansas Lottery needs to go

America's "Powerball fever" finally broke earlier last month, but the Arkansas Lottery is still sick as a dog.

Looking at the latest financial report available on the Arkansas Lottery's website, it appears the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery grossed approximately $38.6 million in December of 2015, but transferred only $6.4 million to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education for college scholarships. That comes out to about 16.5 percent--or about 16 to 17 cents of every dollar the Arkansas Lottery made in December.

Looking at the past 18 months, these numbers are not an anomaly; it seems the Arkansas Lottery routinely gives students less than 20 percent of what it makes each month.

To put it bluntly, the Arkansas Lottery is nothing short of a pathetic failure.

In 2008, Arkansans were told a lottery would generate $100 million annually for college scholarships. It hasn't. Arkansans were assured the lottery would not harm the poor. But Arkansas' poorer counties often have some of the highest per capita lottery ticket sales.

Many believed moving the Arkansas Lottery under the authority of the Department of Finance and Administration last year would reduce wasteful spending. The Arkansas Lottery's administrative costs are still high, and its scholarship budget is still low.

Our office did the math a few years ago. The Arkansas Legislature could collect approximately $100 million for college scholarships each year with a lot less government waste by raising the state sales tax four-tenths of a penny. I am not a fan of higher taxes, so I think it speaks volumes that an increase in the state sales tax actually would be more efficient than the Arkansas Lottery.

We have demanded too little from our state government when it comes to the Arkansas Lottery. If a single mother buys a whole bag of scratch-off tickets because she desperately wants to win the jackpot, no one asks our lottery officials if they are in any way to blame.

When lottery bureaucrats spend money that could go to scholarships on salaries and advertising instead, no one corrects them for it. When lawmakers cut the Arkansas Lottery's funding for compulsive-gambling treatment programs last year, no one was outraged.

If students can't get the scholarships they were promised, who will go to bat for them? The Arkansas Lottery's vendors and marketers have lobbyists and public relations experts looking out for them. Who is looking out for Arkansans?

This is a state-run monopoly that pulls hundreds of millions of dollars out of our economy each year, wastes that money on bureaucracy, preys on our poorest citizens, and fails to keep its promises. We can do better.

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Jerry Cox is president of Family Council, a conservative education and research organization based in Little Rock.

Editorial on 02/08/2016

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