Should the GA lottery really give off an incentive to their players?
The Georgia Lottery contributes an average of $1 million a day to help fund education for Georgians. At least 35% of the lottery’s revenues go to educational programs such as prekindergarten programs for four-year-olds, forgivable loans for students who agree to teach in public schools, computer-equipping classrooms, and scholarships for teachers seeking advanced degrees and high school students graduating with B or better averages. About 50% of lottery revenues go to prizes, 5% to retailers, and the rest to lottery operations. The Georgia Lottery began operating in 1993, setting a record at the time as the most successful startup lottery ever. It has followed up by increasing revenues in subsequent years. Sources: http://www.lotteryinsider.com/lottery/georgia.
Legislators in Georgia are irate over news that employees of the state lottery program collected close to $3-million in bonuses this year. Sales of lottery tickets, which finance the state’s HOPE scholarship program and pre-kindergarten classes, reached a record level, topping $3.4-billion for the fiscal year that ended in June. In an article in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bill Hembree, a Republican who is chairman of the Georgia House’s Higher Education Committee, said the compensation was “insane.” Margaret DeFrancisco, president of the Georgia Lottery, received a bonus of $236,500 on top of her $286,000 salary. Raises for the lottery’s 260 employees amounted to about 4 percent in the past year, compared with 3 percent for state employees. According to Tony Campbell, chairman of the lottery’s board, the bonuses are par for the course in sales jobs, and it is unfair to compare the lottery employees with government ones. Besides, Mr. Campbell says, the bonuses have been effe
