Correction: Ticket sales for the state lottery’s Arkansas 50/50 draw game started Oct. 1, 2011. This article incorrectly reported the date on when ticket sales for the game started.
Along with other state lotteries, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery will stop selling the Monopoly Millionaires Club draw-game ticket Dec. 26, the lottery's director said Tuesday.
The Monopoly Millionaires Club has a weekly drawing, and its top prize ranges from $15 million to $25 million, said lottery spokesman Patrick Ralston. Once the top prize is awarded, a second drawing is done for $1 million, he said.
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley announced the end of ticket sales for the existing game on the heels of the Arkansas lottery reporting that its ticket sales and net proceeds for college scholarships in November fell slightly short of figures from a year ago.
Woosley said he's disappointed that the Monopoly Millionaires Club game will end in Arkansas, particularly in light of lottery consultant Camelot Global Services' report that suggested that Arkansas "find ways to optimize the launch of this game."
The Texas lottery suspended sales of the game after Friday's drawing because ticket sales fell below projections. Then a majority of the lotteries participating in the game decided Monday to suspend sales of the game in its current format.
"Arkansas is but one vote among 23 participating states, and we are bound to follow the wishes of the majority of those states," Woosley said in a news release.
Since starting sales for the game Oct. 19, the Arkansas lottery has sold $330,400 in Monopoly Millionaires Club draw-game tickets, Ralston said.
"We hear all the time from players who say they just want to see more people have a share of the winnings rather than just one gigantic top prize," Woosley said. "I believe that was in the inspiration for the current game, but players didn't respond to it as well as we'd hoped."
Woosley said he'll also ask the Arkansas Lottery Commission to end the Arkansas 50/50 draw game early next year. He noted that Camelot Global Services recommended that the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery reduce its number of draw games to bolster the jackpot for its Natural State Jackpot.
Since kicking off game sales Oct. 1, the Arkansas 50/50 draw game has sold $1.4 million in tickets, Ralston said.
The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery's revenue was $30.6 million in November, down from $31.2 million in November 2013, according to the lottery's latest report to the Legislature's lottery oversight committee.
During the first five months of fiscal 2015, the lottery's revenue has declined by $7.2 million, compared to the same period in fiscal 2014, to $156.7 million.
Last month, the lottery raised $5.5 million for college scholarships, down from $6.7 million in November 2013.
During the first five months of fiscal 2015, the lottery's net proceeds for college scholarships were $27 million, down from $30.8 million during the same period in fiscal 2014.
In fiscal 2012, the lottery's net proceeds peaked at $97.5 million, dropping to $90.2 million in 2013 and $81.4 million in 2014.
The lottery's net proceeds are projected to be $78.2 million in fiscal 2015.
The lottery's ticket sales and net proceeds for college scholarships have dipped during each of the past two fiscal years.
Since ticket sales started Sept. 28, 2009, the lottery has helped finance Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships for more than 30,000 students during each of the past five fiscal years. But the Legislature has twice cut the size of the scholarships for future recipients because of funding shortfalls.
Camelot Global Services said the lottery has too many scratch-off and draw games. Negative public relations and a lack of trust in the lottery are hindering expansion of the lottery's player base, it added.
"The overriding strategy must be to move the lottery away from a gambling organization to a consumer goods sales and marketing organization," the firm said in its report to the Legislature's' lottery oversight committee.
In addition, the consulting firm said the majority of the nine lottery commissioners, including the chairman, should be selected by the governor's office. The governor, House speaker and Senate president pro tempore have three appointees apiece on the commission under existing law.
State Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, a critic of the lottery, said Tuesday that he'll make his final decisions in January about what changes in the lottery's governance that he'll propose, after consulting with other legislators and Republican Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson.
Metro on 12/17/2014