LITTLE ROCK – Total revenue for the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery increased by $9.1 million in the last year, boosted by the Powerball jackpot that reached $1.8 billion in early September 2025. Since 2009, The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has provided over $1.5 billion in scholarship money to Arkansas students. More than 822,000 college scholarships have been distributed by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. Overall, the lottery has awarded more than $5.5 billion in prizes to lottery winners, more than $459 million in commissions to the lottery’s retailers that sell tickets and contributed over $188 million in state and federal taxes over the past 16 years.
The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Lottery Oversight Subcommittee recently agreed to extend two major contracts with vendors, Intralot and Scientific Games, both for an additional 10 years. Department of Finance and Administration Secretary, Jim Hudson and Lottery Director, Sharon Strong, both agreed the lottery was able to secure better deals by negotiating the contracts with the existing vendors than by requesting proposals. According to Hudson, “the value of the contracts going forward, the improvements, the economic concessions coming back to the state (is) about $50 million.” They were able to leverage the buying power of the lottery to pay less and double the number of vending machines. The technology will also be modernized on older lottery vending machines and they will be upgraded to take debit cards, whereas in the past, the machines were only able to accept cash.
The lottery director confirmed September 2025 was the largest month of net proceeds in the history of the lottery. $10.5 million dollars went into the lottery’s net proceeds account; a 58.5% increase from year over year, 30.7% better than budgeted. Also, in September the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery transferred $48 million, one of the largest transfers, from the Arkansas lottery scholarship trust fund to the state Division of Higher Education.
The Assistant Director of Finance for Higher Education gave an update on the lottery scholarship finances. The Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship for fall 2025 was awarded to 27,140 students with over $99 million dollars in scholarship funds; $35 million of that was distributed to 11,836 first year students. This year marks the first time freshman students have benefitted in an adjusted increase from $1,000 to $2,000 for the academic year. The increase was just one of many enhancements of ACCESS, the Governor’s higher education reform bill of 2025.
ACCESS also created additional scholarship money available for lower income students known as the Academic Challenge PLUS Scholarship. It is a need-based award for students who qualify for the regular Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship. Income levels are based on the Student Aid Index (SAI), a number determined by the Department of Education after a student submits the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFA). The scholarship award can range from $500 to $2,500 per semester if the student qualifies and is dependent on the type of institution they attend. This need-based scholarship has assisted 10,313 students with over $19.7 million in 2025.
