Beech Tree News Network

Butler County’s various Kentucky Lottery retailers had a record year in 2011, according to figures made available by the Kentucky Lottery Corporation.

In Fiscal Year 2011 local retailers sold $1,466,784 in tickets within Butler County. By way of comparison Jefferson County retailers sold the most tickets with $178,743,821 of lottery sales, and Carlisle County had the lowest ticket sales with $195,590 in tickets sold. Statewide the Lottery generated $771,177,383 in revenue.  Two counties in Kentucky, Hickman and Robertson, have no Kentucky Lottery retailers.

Since its inception in 1989 the Lottery Corporation has generated over $3.5-billion in revenue for the state according to Kentucky Lottery figures. When it was started the Kentucky Lottery was touted as a way to fund education and veteran’s services within the Commonwealth.  According to the Lottery Corporation 58.7% of lottery revenue is paid back to players. 29.5% in dividends are paid back to the commonwealth, with retailer commissions taking 6.6%, and 5.2% of revenue going to ticket costs and operating expenses.

Education initiatives funded by the lottery include the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) Program, the College Access Program, and Kentucky Tuition Grants Program. The Lottery Corporation has paid $1.74-billion to those programs since 1999 according to their figures. A total of 1.3 million awards have been given to eligible students with the help of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA).

Butler County students received a total of 319 lottery funded awards in the 2011 Fiscal Year, with total awards of $487,320. Jefferson County students received 19,446 awards totaling $29,657,343. To date Butler County students have received a total of 3,747 awards totaling $4,989,072 since 1990.

According to the Lottery Corporation  $36 million in lottery dividends have gone to Kentucky's Early Childhood Reading Incentive Fund, 'Read to Achieve' and Kentucky's Collaborative Center for Literacy Development since 1999. $32-million was used by the State Legislature to pay a one-time bonus to Vietnam veterans in the early 1990’s. Over the years $1.5-billion has gone into the State’s General Fund.

Joe Morris, Beech Tree News