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Jun 29, 2006, 12:45 pm (3 comments)
North Carolina's newly adopted lottery will make a $50 million contribution to the state's Education Lottery Fund on Wednesday — the first transfer since the inception of scratch-off games three months ago.
"This is a historical event for education in North Carolina," said Tom Shaheen, the state's lottery chief.
The lottery will make its next transfer in October, after the first quarter of the next fiscal year. As of Monday, the "education lottery" had sold more than $216 million instant-win and Powerball tickets.
But the $50 million contribution may not funnel directly into state classrooms. Lottery officials and state lawmakers said the first transfer will likely go to establish a reserve fund in case the lottery falls short of its revenue expectations.
Gov. Mike Easley and state legislators originally budgeted $425 million for education programs from the lottery, but the lottery commission passed a budget two weeks ago that anticipated only a $402 million contribution.
AP
$50 Million contribution on $216 Million in sales in less than 3 months...Yes indeed the lottery is a big business ...
We see the real winner is the house.
DD
By law 50 percent is returned in prizes.This first contribution to education includes the start-up cost of setting up the lottery from scratch in this state.The next payment in October should better reflect the actual percent that goes to education.
Out of the 35% of each lottery dollar going to education, 5% of that is for the reserve fund, which can't exceed $50 mil. So the payment mentioned above is just for the reserve fund, not for actual education.