Lottery director Ernie Passailaigue bets on winning public favor

** Updated with State Sen. Sue Madison’s comments – 4 p.m. on 8/10/09 **

You can hear an audio recording of Ernie Passailaigue’s presentation to the Political Animals of Northwest Arkansas HERE (Warning: This is raw audio).

You can view the power point presentation given this morning by clicking HERE.

Photo taken from the power point presentation given this morning by state lottery director Ernie Passailaigue.

By Christopher Spencer
Ozarks Unbound

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ lottery will start in seven weeks on Sept. 28, making it the fastest set up time for a lottery ever, state lottery director Ernie Passailaigue told a crowd of about 140 people this morning.

Every day that passes without the lottery in place means a day that 50 students will not receive $5,000 college scholarships each, he said.

That’s why it’s so critical to move fast, he said.

The lottery is projected to take in about $1 million a day with $250,000 of that going directly to scholarships. The largest cost will be prizes awarded. The administration costs to run the lottery will be low compared to other states, he said.

Criticism of Passailaigue grew sharper last month when he hired Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey as lottery security director for $115,644 —  that is more than Arkansas State Police Director Winford Phillips’ salary of $108,082.

Gov. Mike Beebe asked the lottery commission to better scrutinize salaries being paid to lottery employees after hearing many public complaints.

The director’s salary is $324,000 and two vice presidents were hired for $225,000 each. An information technology gaming director will be paid $150,000  and five other people were hired at salaries ranging from $92,500 to $105,000, according to a July 15 article in The Morning News.

Passailaigue said he was in Northwest Arkansas in order to scout a location for a lottery office in Springdale. He decided also to speak before the Political Animals Club of Northwest Arkansas this morning as he has previously done in central Arkansas.

State lottery director Ernie Passailaigue.

Another criticism leveled against state lotteries is that the majority of revenue is drawn from nonwhite and poor people. Studies in South Carolina showed that those who played lottery were reflective of the state as a whole, and did not unduly draw on a specific group, Passailaigue said.

“The quilt of the Arkansas lottery will look like the quilt of Arkansas,” he said. People of all types will participate because it will be billed as entertainment and helpful to education.

Passailaigue used information from the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, a lottery advocacy group, as source of his statistics.

Residents will not see lottery ads on highway billboards or on the television or in newspapers, he said. Lottery marketing will be low-key and not annoyingly repetitive, he said.

State Sen. Sue Madison opposes the lottery and wants to pass a bill that will dismantle the legislation that enables it. She told The Morning News recently that she voted for that enabling legislation initially because she thought it was the will of the people. Recent criticism has shown that might not be the case, she told the paper.

Madison was not immediately available by phone this morning.

“I think it’s time we took another look at it. That’s something we failed to do during the session. We didn’t consider whether this was good public policy,” Madison said today.

INTERVIEW WITH ERNIE PASSAILAIGUE

Christopher Spencer

Christopher Spencer, 36, is the publisher and owner of Ozarks Unbound and the food news site, The Fayetteville Food File. He is the chair of the Fayetteville Creative Economy Action Group and the social media chair of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He's also the founder of WordCamp Fayetteville. You can always contact him at cspencer@ozarksunbound.com

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2 Comments

• Ginny Blankenship says:

  August 12, 2009 at 2:34 pm

  Thanks for this!

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