PRESCOTT — In Nevada County, purchases of tickets in the Arkansas Lottery in fiscal 2011 amounted to $391.72 per person, more than double the state percapita figure of $159.38.
Arkansas County at $347.84 and Dallas County at $331.13 had the next-largest per-capita lottery purchase totals.
Several lottery retailers in Nevada County were surprised to learn that their county had the highest percapita figure among Arkansas’ 75 counties in a tally by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but Prescott Mayor Terry Oliver, a former convenience-store owner, wasn’t.
“Eight of every 10 times you can go in [a ticket-selling store] somebody is buying in front of you or behind you,” he said. “They buy them and buy some more. You hope it doesn’t affect their budgets so they can’t pay their light bills.”
What fuels the sales?
Oliver said the answer could be the sputtering economy.
“We lost a Potlatch mill here three or four years ago,” he said.
Who’s buying the tickets?
He thinks a good bit of the market is low-income and black, a view echoed in several retail outlets in Prescott.
Finding an explanation in societal factors for the high per-capita figure isn’t easy.
For example, Nevada County’s 2009 per-capita personal income of $27,835 lagged behind the state’s average of $32,315.
But Arkansas County’s income figure, for example, was the state’s third-highest, so there seems to be no direct correlation between income and high per-capita lottery sales.
Dallas County’s $31,369 also fell short of the statewide average.
What about employment?
Nevada County’s 10.6 percent unemployment rate in June exceeded the state’s 8.1 percent rate.
Arkansas County had the state’s highest unemployment rate, 17.9 percent, and Dallas County’s was 12 percent.
In Arkansas County, G&B Liquor, south of the rice mills in Stuttgart, sold the most tickets of any retailer last fiscal year, $2.1 million, according to lottery records. That’s about $113 for each resident of the county.
The store is along a thoroughfare through Stuttgart and has heavy traffic from the mills and from farmers.
“I don’t know why we do so good,” G&B owner Paul Le said Friday.
But, he said, he doesn’t believe the county’s unemployment rate helped his store lead the state in sales. Most of his ticket-buyers have jobs, he said.
One retailer, a restaurant in Rosston, accounted for 7 percent of Nevada County’s lottery ticket sales.
About 70 percent of sales were in Prescott at five retailers within several blocks of one another.
About 23 percent were at three truck stops along Interstate 30, where, the retailers said, many of the customers are out-of-state truckers.
“We are a town between Hot Springs and Shreveport, so we do have a lot of people who like to try to hit that dream ticket,” Oliver said.
One of the Prescott retailers, Baker’s Best Stop gas station and convenience store, sold more than $660,000 in tickets.
Julie Glass, manager of Baker’s, said the sales were mostly to Prescott residents, including a group of retired men who sit in the store and drink coffee.
There also were sales to “a lot of people who you would think don’t have the money” to afford lottery tickets, she said.
Teresa Gram, a clerk at Baker’s, said a majority of people purchasing tickets were low-income and black.
“It’s the last chance to make that easy million [dollars],” she said.
Red letters on Baker’s storefront window read, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”
Carol Smith, manager of Tobacco Superstore 87, another of the five retailers, said mostly low-income black people purchase tickets at the store “looking to get rich quick.”
The scholarship lottery benefits students, she said, but “it bothers me” to see poor people spending money on lottery tickets.
“You can’t stop them from buying [tickets],” Smith said. “There are people digging their change out of their pockets to buy a ticket. It makes poor people poorer.”
Lottery scholarships in the 2010-11 school year went to 81 Nevada County students whose scholarships totaled $324,375, according to the state Department of Higher Education.
Across the state, 31,031 students received a total of $123 million in lottery scholarships.
Nevada County’s population of 8,997 is 65.9 percent white and 30.7 percent black, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
The state’s population of 2.9 million is 77 percent white, 15.4 percent black and 6.4 percent Hispanic, the census indicated.
A study financed by lottery vendor Intralot and presented to the state Lottery Commission in March found that 75 percent of the lottery’s players are whites, who account for 62 percent of the spending, and 22 percent are blacks, who account for 32 percent.
The lottery hasn’t updated that study since March, said lottery spokesman Julie Baldridge.
When asked whether lottery officials have any idea why Nevada County is the highest in per-capita sales and Arkansas County and Dallas County rank so high, Baldridge replied in a word, “No.”
In some other counties, per-capita spending for lottery tickets is surprisingly low: Montgomery County at $37.67, Benton County at $51.71, and Fulton County at $61.16.
According to the state, Montgomery County’s unemployment rate in June was 7.8, Benton County’s was 6.7 percent and Fulton County’s was 7.8 percent.
The 2010 Census said Montgomery County’s 9,487 population was 94.4 percent white, 3.8 percent Hispanic and 0.2 percent black.
Benton County’s 221,339 population was 82.6 percent white, 15.5 percent Hispanic, 2.9 percent Asian, 2.7 percent reporting as two or more races, 1.7 percent American Indian and Alaskan natives, and 1.3 percent black.
Of Fulton County’s 12,245 residents, 96.8 percent were white, 1.7 percent reported as being two or more races, 0.8 percent were Hispanic, and 0.3 percent were black.
Asked if she had any idea why Montgomery, Benton and Fulton counties rank so low, Baldridge replied again, “No.”
But state Rep. Nate Bell, RMena, whose district includes part of Montgomery County, has a theory about why percapita sales are lowest there: A dearth of ticket sellers, for one thing, and the lack of concentrated trading areas in the county, he said.
Most of the western half of the county does business in Mena in Polk County, the southern third trades in Glenwood in Pike County and the eastern part of the county trades in Hot Springs in Garland County, he said.
“Even those who live in Mount Ida have a very limited number of options when shopping and do a majority of their shopping outside of the county,” Bell said.
Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, said members of the Legislature’s lottery oversight committee of which he is a co-chairman have wondered who buys lottery tickets and have discussed studying the matter further.
Act 1222 of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Tracy Steele, D-North Little Rock, requires the Department of Higher Education, the Department of Education and the Bureau of Legislative Research to study the fairness of the distribution of the scholarships, including factors such as race, sex, county of residence, and the financial need of scholarship applicants.
A final report is due by June 1.
Key said that judging from the experiences in other states’ lotteries, he expects counties with lower income levels to have higher percapita sales.
“It’s not good, but I think that’s just an inherent component of lotteries in Arkansas and anyplace else,” he said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/14/2011