In Arkansas County, purchases of tickets for the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery amounted to $338.55 per person in fiscal 2014, with the eastern Arkansas county's lottery retailers selling the most tickets per person among the state's 75 counties.
Lottery players purchased $284.40 in tickets per person in Nevada County in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and $276.20 in tickets per person in Prairie County to rank second and third, respectively, in per capita lottery purchases during the period. Conway County ranked fourth with $265.49 in per capita ticket purchases, and Chicot County's was fifth with $245.79.
The lottery's most prolific lottery retailer, G&B Liquor in Stuttgart, is in Arkansas County.
Arkansas County's lottery retailers sold $6.4 million in tickets in fiscal 2014, and G&B Liquor sold $2.2 million of those tickets, according to lottery records.
The store is on a major thoroughfare through Stuttgart and has heavy traffic from the rice mills and farmers.
The store's owner, Paul Le, said many of his lottery customers used to gamble more at the Tunica casinos but he talked them into buying lottery tickets, and "they are spending a lot of money here" these days.
"We get all kinds [of lottery players] -- low income, middle income and high income," he said, and about half are white and about half are black.
Asked to explain why Arkansas, Nevada and Prairie counties' ticket sales led the way in fiscal 2014, lottery spokesman Patrick Ralston declined to offer any theories.
"We're not going to speculate on sales performance of individual counties, except to note that sales numbers are a function of several variables, including, but not limited to, population 18 or over, number of lottery retailers and retail traffic," Ralston said.
Senate Republican Whip Jonathan Dismang of Searcy, whose district includes Prairie County and part of Arkansas County, said he's not sure why Arkansas and Prairie counties' per capita lottery ticket sales are so high other than Arkansas County's ticket sales are bolstered by the G&B Liquor store's sales.
During the lottery's first full fiscal year -- fiscal 2011 -- purchases of tickets per person were the highest in Nevada County ($391.72), Arkansas County ($347.84) and Dallas County ($331.13). Per capita ticket sales dropped to $215.25 in Dallas County last fiscal year.
The lottery's ticket sales totaled $464.7 million in fiscal 2011 and raised $94.2 million for college scholarships.
Ticket sales and the lottery's net proceeds for college scholarships have dropped each of the past two fiscal years. For fiscal 2014, ticket sales totaled $410 million, with $81.4 million for scholarships. The lottery has helped fund Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships for more than 30,000 college students during each of the past four school years. The scholarships also are financed with $20 million a year from the state's general tax revenue, which is made up largely of the state's sales and individual income taxes.
The lottery's per capita ticket sales across the state were $140.80 in fiscal 2014 and $159.38 in fiscal 2011. They peaked at $162.55 in fiscal 2012 when sales totaled $474 million.
The county with the highest per capita ticket sales also has one of the state's highest per capita incomes. But ticket sales are also high in some counties where income levels are low.
According to the latest available information, Arkansas County's per capita personal income was $42,411 in 2012, ranking third among the state's 75 counties behind only Union County's $46,473 and Pulaski County's $45,875, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The statewide average per capita personal income was $35,437 in 2012.
On the other hand, Nevada County's per capita personal income was $30,825 in 2012, falling $4,612 short of the state's average.
Yet Prairie County's personal income was $35,445 per person in 2012 -- $8 more than the state's average.
Arkansas County's unemployment rate was 5 percent in June, while Nevada County's was 6.1 percent and Prairie County's was 5.7 percent, and the state's overall unemployment rate was 6.2 percent, according to the state Department of Workforce Services.
A study on the lottery's players, presented to the Lottery Commission in March 2011, found that 75 percent of the players are white and account for 62 percent of the spending, and 22 percent are black and account for 32 percent. (Ralston said the lottery is in preliminary discussions about conducting a new study in the next six months.)
The state's population is 79.9 percent white and 15.6 percent black, according to the U.S. Census.
Arkansas County's population is 72.5 percent white and 24.8 percent black, while Nevada County's population is 67.1 percent white and 30.7 percent black. Prairie County's is 86.2 percent white and 12.2 percent black, according to the U.S. Census.
Counties with the lowest per capita ticket sales were Montgomery, Madison, Benton, Fulton and Crawford.
Montgomery County's per capita ticket sales were $44.58, lagging behind Madison County's $49.90, Benton County's $55.32, Fulton County's $59.36 and Crawford County's $70.81 in fiscal 2014.
In fiscal 2011, the state's lowest per capita ticket sales were in Montgomery ($37.67), Benton ($51.71) and Fulton counties ($61.16).
Ralston said most of Montgomery County is in the Ouachita National Forest, and there are few stores that sell lottery tickets in the county, which has a small population. Montgomery's per capita income was $25,239 in 2012.
Fulton County also has a small population and "may be impacted by border play [in the Missouri lottery]," he said. Fulton County's per capita income was $28,213 in 2012.
Benton, Crawford and Madison counties are in Arkansas' 3rd Congressional District, a part of the state where ticket sales have been weak for several years.
Benton, Crawford and Madison counties' per capita personal income was $38,856, $28,880 and $23,475, respectively, in 2012. Madison County's was the lowest in the state.
Arkansas County's residents received $44.85 per person from the lottery-financed Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship last fiscal year.
That ranked higher than Nevada and Prairie counties, which received $31.26 and $33.90, respectively, per capita.
The state average scholarship dollars awarded per capita was $38.62 in fiscal 2014.
Three of the counties that received the most per capita surround Pulaski County.
They are Faulkner, Lonoke and Saline counties. Their residents received $53.37, $49.99 and $52.27 per capita, respectively.
Franklin County -- with $54.30 -- was the leading county in the state in fiscal 2014 in per capita scholarship dollars.
Dismang, whose Senate district includes part of Lonoke County, said he wonders if the schools in those counties are doing a better job of preparing their students for college.
Lonoke County has "a really good school system, where they are very engaged with their students," he said.
Shane Broadway, director of the state Department of Higher Education, said the department hasn't compiled a breakdown of the family incomes and races of the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship recipients during the past few years.
In 2012, Saline County's per capita personal income was $41,203, ranking fourth among the state's 75 counties, while Faulkner, Franklin and Lonoke counties' were $34,472, $31,837 and $34,539, respectively, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Lee, Miller, Carroll, St. Francis and Van Buren counties received the lowest amount of Arkansas Academic Challenge scholarship dollars per person among the state's counties in fiscal 2014.
They received, respectively, $17.46, $17.99, $18.65, $19.90 and $23.84.
A section on 08/10/2014