Lottery to keep scratch off vendor

LITTLE ROCK, AR - The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery keeps its contract with its main scratch off ticket vendor.  But some commissioners believe the contract is costing Arkansas college students millions in scholarship dollars.

There are clearly two view points from the lottery commission: One that feels the previous lottery director got Arkansas a bad deal; the other that feels good or bad, the deal is valid.

The lottery pulls in nearly $100 million a year for scholarships.

But commissioner Bruce Engstrom feels it could be more had previous director Ernie Passailaigue not made a change to a scratch-off ticket contract.

Internal auditor Michael Hyde advised commissioners to seek legal counsel on what to do about it. They voted 7-2 not to follow that advice.

Commissioner Ben Packard says he doesn’t want to risk disrupting 80% of lottery sales.

“Is it the best contract we could get? In retrospect, probably not,” Pickard says.  “Anything that was done questionable was done by our previous administration, they are no longer here.  The ramifications of us not continuing it are somewhat mind boggling. So I just felt like it was time to finish this and get on with it.”

Engstrom told FOX16 News he didn't like doing television interviews, so for a portion of the interview he held one hand and then both hands up to block his face while we asked questions.

“I felt like my position was correct. Obviously other commissioners didn’t and they voted against me,” Engstrom says.

The rest of the commission believes this will be the final time the contract is brought up.