Arkansas Lottery News

LITTLE ROCK —The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery, which is committed to ensuring minority-owned and women-owned businesses have opportunities to participate in its ongoing operation, will present “Diversity is the Winning Ticket: Doing Business with the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery.”

The program will be held from 2-5 p.m. Dec. 7 at the Great Hall of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock.

Topics will include:

• ASL's future-focused Supplier Development Plan

• Contracting opportunities with ASL

• Subcontracting opportunities with ASL?s major gaming vendors

• Becoming an ASL retailer

• And much more.

Speakers will include State Representative Darrin Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas Economic Development Commission Director of Small and Minority Business Division Patricia Brown, ASL Executive Director Ernie Passailaigue, ASL Vice President of Administration Ernestine Middleton, ASL Director of Procurement Bishop Woosley, ASL Minority & Diversity Business Enterprise Manager Ivan Hudson and Arkansas Lottery Commission Chairman Ray Thornton.

There is no cost to attend; however, pre-registration is required by Dec. 3. For more information and to RSVP call Ivan Hudson at 501-683-2009 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

About the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery

The purpose of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery is to support education for Arkansas students and build a better future for our state. Security and integrity — reflecting the values of the people of Arkansas — are essential to the success of our work.

Arkansas Powerball Lottery News

LITTLE ROCK — State lottery officials are hoping the launch of Arkansas Powerball Lottery ticket sales on Halloween night will be more treat than trick.

Retailers can start selling Powerball tickets at 10:15 p.m. Saturday. A kickoff party in Little Rock’s River Market District will include a countdown and a ball drop similar to the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York’s Times Square.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Lottery officials confirmed today that a second person has won a $100,000 prize from a scratch-off ticket.

Alex Kimbrell of Humphrey collected his prize today on a $5 Cash Bonanza ticket he bought in Stuttgart, Arkansas Lottery treasurer Jim Parrish said. Kimbrell told lottery officials he plans to buy a house and help pay for his wife’s medical expenses with the winnings.

The first $100,000 prize was won earlier this month by Joe Pierce of Van Buren, who checked into jail within hours of collecting his winnings to begin serving a sentence for loitering and indecent exposure. The state’s lottery law prohibits incarcerated people from collecting lottery prizes, but Arkansas Lottery officials said Pierce could keep his winnings because was not incarcerated at the time he received the prize.

Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue said today he expected a smooth start to Arkansas Powerball Lottery ticket sales.

“We passed our security test by the Multi-State Lottery Association, and all the acceptance testing we’ve done in terms of the Powerball game itself was fine,” he said. “We feel like we’re poised to have a very good launch.”

Arkansas is the 31st state to join Powerball. Tickets are $1, though for another $1 players can choose the Power Play option for a chance to multiply non-jackpot winnings by 2-5 times.

Passailaigue said he is not allowed to play the lottery, but “if I did play the Powerball game, I’d definitely buy the multiplier.” For an extra $1, Power Play can turn a $200,000 prize into $1 million, he said.

Players can pick their numbers or have numbers randomly chosen for them. Winning the jackpot requires matching numbers to five white balls in any order plus a red Powerball, but other matches can win smaller prizes.

The jackpot starts at $20 million and grows as long as no one claims it. On Friday, the jackpot was $53 million.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 195 million. The odds of winning anything at all are 1 in 35.

Drawings are held at 9:59 p.m. CST every Wednesday and Saturday in Orlando, Fla. The first drawing in which Arkansas Powerball Lottery players will be eligible to win will be Wednesday.

Passailaigue said Little Rock-based KARK-TV has agreed to broadcast the drawings in Arkansas, and he hopes to line up other stations later.

Other news media likely will report the winning numbers, which can also be found on Powerball’s Web site, Passailaigue said.

Lottery officials have estimated the Arkansas Powerball Lottery will generate $400 million in gross proceeds in its first year, about $58 million of that in Powerball sales. Arkansas Lottery is expected to net about $100 million for college scholarships.

Four states neighboring Arkansas already sell Powerball tickets, and Texas sells tickets for the multi-state game Mega Millions. Passailaigue said he expects Powerball’s arrival in Arkansas to help retain dollars now being spent by Arkansans in other states.

“I don’t know of any reason people would go across the state line to play the same game,” he said.

Oklahoma lottery officials have estimated their sales will drop $12 million a year because of the Arkansas Powerball Lottery.

If you would like to learn how to play the Arkansas Powerball Game - Click Here

Arkansas Lottery News

A woman is arrested inside the Arkansas Lottery Headquarters Monday afternoon, and the local media's cameras were there for the arrest.

Police say Ruth Dennis, 56, tried to pass a fake winning ticket for the real thing at the claims center. Her friend, John Burch says he gave Dennis and her sister a ride from Camden with a $3,000 ticket.

Lottery director Ernie Passailaigue says the ticket was clearly not real. He says she used the three times lucky scratch tickets and allegedly cut and pasted different numbers to make it appear like a winner.

"There's no cure for stupid," Passailaigue said, "And that's what's going to happen. People are going to try and defraud the lottery and they're going to go to jail.

Over the past three weeks, Passailaigue says Monday's incident was the first "fake" ticket arrest in the state. He says the best way to win the lottery is to play it.

Police say the woman has been charged with one count of fraud in relation to the lottery ticket.

Arkansas Lottery News

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas State Lottery officials expect the debut of four new scratch-off games on Tuesday to generate some interest among players, but they say the big event of the month will be next week’s debut of the Arkansas Powerball Lottery.

“It’s just like any other product: When there’s something new out, people try it. If we experience the same thing as other lotteries do, there should be some boost in sales” when the new scratch-off tickets go on sale, Arkansas Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue said last week.

The games starting Tuesday are Super 7’s, which costs $5 to play and offers a top prize of $77,777; Crazy 8’s, which costs $2 and offers a top prize of $18,888; Money Madness, which costs $2 and offers a top prize of $18,000; and Money Bags, which costs $1 and offers a top prize of $2,000.

The four scratch-off games that debuted on Sept. 28 will continue to be available. The Arkansas lottery will launch about four new games a month, said Carolyn Cabell, the lottery’s director of product development.

Passailaigue has said players eventually will be able to choose from about 24 scratch-off games.

The top prizes of the games launching Tuesday are smaller than the top prizes of the first four games, which range from $3,000 to $100,000, yet the new games will cost just as much to play. Arkansas Lottery officials say they don’t expect that to discourage people from buying the new tickets.

“What motivates lottery players, especially instant ticket players, is not necessarily your top prize but a nice prize,” Passailaigue said.

“It’s just something new,” said Cabell, who formerly worked in product development for the South Carolina Lottery. “$100,000 will remain the highest prize that we have, but these new games bring in some variety.”

People with a fondness for the numbers 7 and 8 appear to be the targeted group for the Super 7’s and Crazy 8’s games, named for their top prizes of $77,777 and $18,888, respectively.

Why is it $18,888 and not $88,888?

“For a $2 ticket, we thought that $18,000 was a good range,” Cabell said.

For instant-win players who are motivated by the chance of winning a big prize, the Arkansas Lottery will unveil a $10 game with a $500,000 top prize on Nov. 10.

Any boost the Arkansas Lottery gets by adding new scratch-off games is likely to pale in comparison to the Oct. 31 introduction of the Arkansas Powerball Lottery.

Passailaigue said the Arkansas Lottery is planning a series of events around Arkansas to build up excitement for the multi-state game, which costs $1 to play and offers a minimum jackpot of $20 million.

The most recent jackpot awarded to a Powerball player was a $259.9 million prize won in August by a Columbia, S.C., man.

The first Arkansas-only draw game is scheduled to start Dec. 14. Passailaigue predicted that when all the games are in place, about 60 percent of the lottery’s revenue will come from instant-win tickets, about 20 percent from Powerball and about 20 percent from in-state draw games.

Even without draw games, the Arkansas lottery has been averaging well over $1 million a day in sales. If that rate of sales were to continue indefinitely, the Arkansas Lottery could reach its projected net of $100 million a year to fund college scholarships with instant-win games alone.

Passailaigue said that’s not likely to happen.

“Realistically, I don’t think that particular sales rate, especially (with just) the instant tickets, can be retained,” he said. “I might be proven wrong, but if we keep that sales rate up then we’ve really underestimated how much the Arkansas Lottery can gross and net.”