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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas lottery is trying to find ways to boost sales so the state can award more college scholarships, but a legislative panel showed little affection Tuesday for the methods that could be employed.
The Legislative Lottery Oversight Committee approved a motion of "non-support" for a proposal to introduce games in which players can watch monitors in stores, bars or restaurants and bet on numbers that are drawn every four minutes. The vote was nonbinding. Proposed changes in the lottery law go to the full Legislature.
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley explained that interest in the lottery, which was launched five years ago, has waned. Sales of instant tickets, in which Arkansas once led the nation, and draw games have declined to the point that the lottery lowered its projected earnings for the fiscal year, dropping it from $90.2 million to $82.7 million. That's the amount of money expected to be available for scholarships at the close of the fiscal year on June 30.
Woosley said the draw games are down because of "jackpot fatigue" brought on by modifications to the Powerball game, in which tickets doubled in price to $2 and the top jackpot has become harder to win, leading to bigger jackpots. The eye-popping jackpots are frequent enough that Powerball doesn't attract the same level of interest than when big payouts were less common.
"That's kind of a national trend," Woosley said.
Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, said players are holding onto their money because the odds of winning the top prize are longer. She said the theme of the games should be, "Somebody's going to win (and not) everybody's going to lose."
The Lottery Commission could vote as soon as Wednesday on whether to go ahead with the monitor games, which could offer Keno or other forms of wagering.
Woosley said the monitor games could bring in new players who don't now buy lottery tickets, saying someone could sit in a tavern and play for 20 or 30 minutes at a stretch.
Sen. Robert Thompson, D-Paragould, said the proposal seems to go beyond what voters had before them when they approved the state lottery.
"What happens in four years?" Thompson asked. "This almost seems to me like a race to the bottom."
The panel is also expected to consider whether to allow the use of debit cards to buy lottery tickets. At present, retailers can only accept cash.
Woosley said he's operating at a disadvantage because when the lottery launched, then-director Ernie Passailaigue introduced a wide variety of games. Woosley said he would have preferred to introduce new products over a series of years to help sustain interest, but the lottery opened with a full complement of $1, $5, $10 and $20 instant ticket games.
Woosley also said the image of the lottery has been hurt by lawsuits and a scandal in which a security officer, Remmele Mazyck, was convicted of stealing large numbers of instant tickets — a loss of $482,000 to the lottery. Woosley said an insurance payout has reimbursed almost all of losses, with the balance expected to come from an order that Mazyck pay restitution.
Jerry Cox, director of the conservative Arkansas Family Council, said approving use of debit cards and introductions of the monitor games would be a bad combination.
People with gambling problems could run out of cash but keep playing by using a debit card, he said, and the monitor games would have greater appeal for gambling addicts.
"There are a bunch of unanswered questions about these new games," Cox said.
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