Arkansas lottery sales in the year ending June 30 were up sharply over the previous year, if well below projections for scholarship proceeds when the lottery was established as well as earliest results
Gamblers bought $455.6 million worth of tickets in the year, up 11.5 percent from the year before. The net for scholarships was $85.4 million, up $13 million from the previous year.
By way of comparison, the lottery in its first full year of operation, ending June 30, 2011, had $465 million in revenue and transferred $94.2 million to the fund for lottery scholarships. That was near the $100 million net that some had predicted for the lottery, but never achieved. Sales have drifted downward since, until the recent uptick, powered in part by some big jackpots in the multistate lotteries.