By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ lottery rang up an estimated $9.8 million in sales in its first week, the lottery’s director said today.
“I’m pleased that it looks like Arkansans are, I think, looking on the lottery favorably,” Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue said.
The lottery launched Sept. 28 with sales of scratch-off tickets at nearly 1,500 retail locations across the state. Passailaigue said he does not expect the tickets to keep selling at the current brisk rate.
“You’re going to have a drop-off of lottery play for scratch-off tickets,” he said. “It’s inevitable you’re not going to keep this up, almost $10 million a week. It would be ridiculous to think you could keep that up with scratch-off tickets in a population of 2.8 million people.”
Powerball tickets are scheduled to go on sale in the state Oct. 31, and Arkansas draw games are scheduled to start in December. Passailaigue predicted that sales of scratch-off tickets will decline before the end of October but that “Powerball will be a nice little boost for sales.”
The lottery’s “settles,” or the money retailers must pay to the lottery before deducting commissions and prize payouts, totaled $8.98 million by the end of the first week. That figure does not reflect all of the week’s transactions, however, because a pack of tickets is not considered settled until 75 percent of the lower-tier prizes are validated or 28 days after the pack is activated for sale by the retailer, whichever comes first.
Prize payouts in the first seven days were estimated at $6.5 million. The highest prize to date was won by Stan Tapp of Dover, who won $25,000 on a ticket he bought in Russellville.
The second-highest prize was $20,000, won by Delina Snow of Van Buren on a ticket she bought in Searcy.
Also, more than 21,000 people registered on the lottery’s Web site to become eligible for second-chance drawings. A player can submit information from any losing ticket and become eligible to win that game’s top prize in a drawing to be held when the game is discontinued, which will happen periodically to make way for new games.
Players who register online will also receive points toward non-cash prizes. Passailaigue said the second-chance drawings and extra prizes give the tickets added value and discourage littering.
“It keeps lottery tickets off the street,” he said. “It ensures that they’re disposed of properly.”
Arkansas voters last year approved a constitutional amendment to create the lottery to fund college scholarships. Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who proposed the amendment, has predicted the lottery would take in $400 million annually in gross ticket sales and net $100 million a year for scholarships.
“I certainly stand by those predictions,” Halter said today. “Obviously we’re off to a good start.”
Passailaigue said today he is preparing a budget for the lottery based on estimates of an annual $400 million gross and $100 million net.
“Now I think that’s realistic,” he said. “I didn’t know what to think before.”
The state Legislature will set the amounts for the first lottery-funded scholarships during the 2010 fiscal session, which convenes in February. The first scholarships will be awarded for the 2010-2011 school year.
State Rep. Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock, House chairman of the Arkansas Lottery Commission Legislative Oversight Committee, said today he already has a figure in mind.
“It looks to me like we’re getting ourselves in a strong enough position that we surely have the opportunity to set the scholarship amounts at $5,000” to attend a four-year school, Hyde said.
Halter declined to specify a scholarship amount he’d like to see but said that “if we continue to see good numbers, we should see big scholarships.”
