New York Lottery axes $1.4M in scholarships after taking in $7.5 billion in 2008

Comment #9

bashley572 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:06:43 GMT

I have never understood WHY the lottery is set up as it is. Why should so much money go to schools? Why not just keep enough money to 'run' the lottery and PAY BACK the rest in winnings to the players. This would increase the money won by players. It s inefficient to 'run' the money 'through' the lottery to get it to the schools.

Comment #8

jarasan — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:59:26 GMT

Yeah I know, percentage, it's been one of those short month end of the monther funners.

Comment #7

jarasan — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:42:31 GMT

Thanks Floyd, you are correct I didn't X 100 for precentage.

Comment #6

KY Floyd — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:49:46 GMT

What would be truly stupid is reducing the advertising budget when they're grossing almost $92 for every $1 spent on advertising. I'm sure it's not a linear correlation, but it's a fairly safe bet that cutting $1 million from advertising would result in losing at least $10 to $20 million in sales. Unless your math is really special, that doesn't save money.

Comment #5

KY Floyd — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:47:12 GMT

You're off by a factor of 100; the reduction is 0.05%. Instead of giving $2,560,000,000 they'll be giving $2,558,600,000. That's not news, it's a minor bookkeeping entry that's essentially meaningless.

Instead of eliminating scholarships I'd rather see it done as a reduction in aid to the actual schools. For 1150 schools, it would be an average reduction of $1217.39*. They could save that by not driving the school buses to a couple of football or basketball games.

*Notice how close that is... [ More ]

Comment #4

jarasan — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:11:24 GMT

From above:

Last year, the agency gave out about 53% of its income about $3.97 billion in prizes and about 34%, or $2.56 on education .

WOW $2.56, definitely they mean $2.56 Billion, right? OK $2,560,000,000 not $2.56, enough to buy one Filet O Fish, no actually just half a Filet O Fish.

$1.4 million is $1,400,000. $1.4M of $2.56B is .000546875% of $2.56B (2,560,000,000 USAmerican dollars)! This is exactly what is wrong with having bureaucrats running the lottery, they write rules, man... [ More ]

Comment #3

Todd — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:30:41 GMT

Every hear of Capital Gains Tax? They get hammered too. Plus, the outrageous fees for every trade makes it quite taxing .

Comment #2

bambini — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:01:57 GMT

......meanwhile stock trades on wall street go un-taxed.......go figure

Comment #1

Littleoldlady — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:10:26 GMT

This is the most ridiculous and assinine thing I have ever heard . Someone should investigate this lottery. This is wrong. They didn't want to cut their 88 MILLION dollar advertising budget? That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. These children need to be able to go to college. That is what the lottery was brought into being for-to help children go to college.! Maybe the person who thought of this could really save the state some money by resigning. Or maybe yet, they are using the adv... [ More ]

New York Lottery axes $1.4M in scholarships after taking in $7.5 billion in 2008

Lottery Post — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:48:44 GMT

The New York Lottery has quietly halted its college scholarship program for more than 1,150 high school seniors, blaming the governor's budget cuts.

One student from every high school in the state has been eligible for a $5,000 Leaders of Tomorrow scholarship since 2000.

The cut will save the agency, which took in about $7.5 billion in revenues last year, about $1.4 million.

A Lottery spokeswoman said the cut was necessary to comply with Gov. Paterson's request that all agencies cut abo... [ More ]