Lottery’s take up $5 million for its first gain in 7 months
For the first time in fiscal 2015, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery’s monthly ticket revenue has exceeded its year-ago figures.
January’s ticket revenue totaled $36.4 million, exceeding ticket revenue of $31 million in January 2014, the lottery reported.
January’s scratch-off ticket sales totaled $29 million — a 17 percent increase over the $24.8 million sold in January 2014 — and draw game ticket sales totaled $7.4 million — a 20 percent increase over the $6.2 million sold in January 2014, the lottery said.
Lottery spokesman Patrick Ralston said the amount that the lottery raised for college scholarships in January isn’t available but will be made public by early next week.
In January 2014, the lottery reported raising $5.6 million for college scholarships.
The lottery revealed these ticket sales figures as state Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, said he plans to ask the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday to approve his bill to abolish the nine-member Arkansas Lottery Commission, transfer the lottery into the state Department of Finance and Administration and allow the governor rather than the commission to appoint and oversee the lottery director.
Hickey, a critic of the lottery, said Tuesday that “one or two months doesn’t make a turnaround.”
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said the lottery “started 2015 with two online jackpot runs and six months of gradual improvement in our [scratchoff ] ticket sales.”
The Mega Millions jackpot reached $270 million before a winner was picked last month and the Powerball jackpot kept increasing and is now estimated at $317 million, he said.
“It’s always nice to have this kind of wind at your back going into the big sales months of spring,” Woosley said in a written statement.
He said the scratch-off ticket sales increase is gratifying “because we have much more control over those sales through our current marketing campaign” and the lottery has made some changes in its game portfolio in line with the recommendations made in December by the Legislative Council’s lottery consultant, Camelot Global Services, which has offices in Philadelphia and London.
“But the big multi-state jackpots also mean more to our bottom line, dollar to dollar, supporting the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship program,” Woosley said in a news release.
The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery sold more scratch-off tickets but fewer draw-game tickets, such as Powerball and Mega Millions, during the first six months of fiscal 2015 compared with the same period in the previous fiscal year. Fiscal 2015 began July 1. The drop-off in draw-game ticket sales exceeded the gain in scratch-off tickets during the first six months of fiscal 2015, leading to a decline in lottery revenue and net proceeds raised for college scholarships.
The state lottery’s ticket sales and the amounts raised for college scholarships have declined each of the past two fiscal years.
The lottery has helped finance Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships for more than 30,000 students a year in each of the past five fiscal years. During recent years, the Legislature has twice cut the size of the scholarships for future recipients partly because of lottery proceeds falling short of initial projections.
During the first six months of fiscal 2015, overall lottery revenue fell by $8.2 million from the same period in fiscal 2014 to $191.2 million, the lottery indicated in its reports to the Legislature’s lottery oversight committee.
During this six-month period ending Dec. 31, the amount raised for college scholarships by the lottery slipped by $4.1 million from the same period in fiscal 2014, to $32.5 million, the reports show.
Woosley, who has been the lottery’s director since February 2012, projected in August that lottery revenue would be $416.8 million, with net proceeds for college scholarships at $78.2 million.
Woosley is projecting that fiscal 2015 scholarship proceeds will be the lowest of any year since the lottery started selling tickets Sept. 28, 2009.
Also Tuesday, the Senate approved the latest amendment to Hickey’s Senate Bill 7 to abolish the Lottery commission and allow the governor to appoint the lottery director.
The latest amendment would abolish the commission and transfer its powers and duties to the Office of the Arkansas Lottery inside the Management Services Division of the Department of Finance and Administration.
Among other things, the 60-page amendment would reduce the special salary allowance that could be granted to the lottery director, with the approval of the Legislature’s lottery oversight committee, from 2½ times the $141,603 a year maximum salary authorized by the General Assembly for the position — $354,007 — to 1½ times that $141,603 salary — $212,404. The current director is paid $165,000 a year.
The lottery’s first director, Ernie Passailaigue, was making $326,832 a year when he resigned in September of 2011. The former South Carolina lottery director was hired at a starting salary of $324,000 a year in 2009.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said in July that he favors making the lottery a state agency accountable to the governor’s office. Last month, Hutchinson said it would be better for the lottery to be placed in the finance department instead of the Higher Education Department.
Internal auditors at the finance department said they have identified eight employees at the lottery whose duties could be transferred to the finance department and save the lottery more than $400,000 a year. The lottery has 72 employees, according to finance department records.