ARKANSAS, USA — Since 2009, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has been giving scholarships to students across the area.
"The Arkansas Department of Higher Education gives scholarships to about 30,000 students annually," said Sharon Strong, the Executive Director of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery.
However, while that is a significant number, the applicants are limited to which schools they can go to.
"So right now, the scholarship is limited to students who are attending Arkansas schools," Strong explained. As long as they are in the state they qualify.
"So all of the state schools, University of Arkansas Systems, ASU system, are included in that as well as some of the private schools, Hendrix and other private universities," Strong said.
The most popular part of the lottery is the potential payout, and Sharon Strong tells us which games are favored for winning big.
"The most popular games are the scratch offs, as well as the multi state, the Powerball and the Mega Millions. Those have the large payouts that you hear about, and so people get excited to play those," Strong said.
And if you do win big, there are multiple ways to receive your payout.
"You can get an immediate payout, lump sum payout, or you can do an annuity. We will withhold the correct amount of taxes. If they do the lump sum payout. That seems to be the majority of our winners choosing that option," Strong said.
Strong adds that's the biggest expense of her organization.
"I think it's probably the biggest expense is the price payouts. And then that's how our proceeds are determined based on sales and then minus our operating expenses," Strong said.
And as for the stores who sell the tickets, they get their payday as well.
"Our retailers get 5% of their sales, and then they get one per 1% bonus for selling a winning ticket up to $50,000 and then they also get a 1% bonus for cashing tickets. So they can cash a winning ticket if it's $500 or less, and they'll get their 1% bonus on that," Strong explained.
This lottery has awarded students with around $1.4 Billion in scholarship in its 15 years of existence with over 770,000 scholarships.
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