Lottery tops $91 million for students

The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery raised $91.9 million for college scholarships in the fiscal year that ended June 30 — the third-largest amount it’s raised in nine years of operation.

And the lottery collected $500.4 million in fiscal 2018, exceeding the previous peak of $473.6 million in fiscal 2012.

The only other years the lottery raised more than $90 million for college scholarships were 2011 and 2012. Net proceeds totaled $94.2 million and $97.5 million, respectively.

It’s helped finance more than 30,000 Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships during its first eight years.

Net proceeds didn’t set a record in 2018 because lottery players prefer higher-priced scratch-off tickets with a lower profit margin, according to an agency official.

Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Tuesday the startup of the Arkansas lottery was one of the more accelerated and ambitious and scratch-off tickets were introduced at a faster rate than elsewhere.

Lottery players “gravitated from $1 and $2 tickets to $5, $10 and $20 tickets faster than they would have had there been normal lottery growth,” he said in a statement. “Over time, that has caused our players to primarily play the higher price point tickets which have a lower margin.”

It’s “become more and more of a challenge each year to increase our return [for college scholarships] because the players were introduced to higher price point tickets in a shorter timeframe than normal and they continue to gravitate to the higher price points that have a lower margin,” Woosley said. “Therefore it will be a continuing challenge … to find ways to increase our return as players continue to play the higher price point, lower margin tickets.”