For the past six years the Oklahoma lottery, including Powerball, MegaMillions, Hot Lotto and a number of scratch games, has provided about $70 million a year to education. In May, it’s total contribution surpassed $400 million. US lottery

The problem is that this contribution is way below the projects that were given to voters who approved the state lottery in 2005. So the question often asked is, “What happened to the lottery funds?” And that is a question that Jim Scroggins, executive director of the Lottery Commission, fields with patience and an eye for the future. Lottery results

“One of the things that restricts our ability to grow our sales any larger is that by having a mandatory 35 percent of our profit going to education, it restricts our ability to raise our prizes,” Scroggins said.

He said that studies have shown, the larger the prizes, the more tickets that are sold.

Oklahoma’s lottery law requires the commission to give 35 percent of its revenue to education. So, after the commission pays for expenses to operate the games, Scroggins says there is basically no room for larger prizes in the games, which in his opinion, would attract more players, which is why there is no more money for education.

“You can’t spend a percentage,” he said.

In spite of this, Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Karl Springer said educators are grateful for the funding.

“It has generated $400 million that this state otherwise wouldn’t have had for schools,” he said.

But Springer said, “the money was never tracked properly”.

The lottery law stipulates that the money is not supposed to supplant the current education funding though it is supposed to be an extra to education funding.

The contribution of the lottery is split with 45 percent going to prekindergarten through 12th-grade education; 45 percent going to support capitol projects for higher education; 5 percent going to the state’s school consolidation fund and the final 5 percent going to the teacher retirement system.

In the case of higher education, the money is easier to track and there is actually a list of capitol improvement projects that the lottery has funded at colleges and universities across the state.

But for prekindergarten through 12th-grade education, the money goes directly into the state, which in turn distributes the funding equally between school districts depending on a student enrollment equation.

“For the past six years, Superintendents across the state have been in the dark about how many of their dollars were the result of the lottery,” Springer said.

The fear they have is that the lottery dollars may not have meant more money for education, but only allowed lawmakers to supplant the education funding with the lottery dollars and use their original funding for other projects.

And interestingly enough, where lottery tickets have fallen short in Oklahoma, the casinos that have popped up across the state are filling in.

Fees charged to tribal gaming operations brought in about $416 million during the past six years specifically for education and funding for the general fund and gambling addition programs, according to the Office of State Finance.

All of that funding went directly to common education.

So, the question “What happened to the lottery funds?” remains, it is now up to state officials to find out the answer.