Winners announced in Alaska’s second annual PFD education raffle

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaskans paid for 9,833 entries into this year’s Permanent Fund Dividend education raffle — 1,135 more than the raffle’s inaugural drawing in 2020. At $100 per entry, that means the state raised $983,300, of which half, $491,650, will go directly towards funding educational grants for local school districts.

The other half of the money will be split 50/50, between the state’s Educational Endowment Fund and the funds used to carry out the raffle. This year’s winners were announced on Wednesday, from the state office building in Juneau.

Entries with a common name will be tracked by their PFD ID number, to ensure that the correct winner is awarded.

According to figures from the Department of Revenue, the money collected from two year’s worth of entry fees has added $463,275 to the endowment fund.

With $75 of every $100 spent on the raffle going directly to Alaska’s schools, Deputy Commissioner of Revenue Mike Barnhill says the uptick in entries is welcome news.

“I think as the prizes increase, we’ll probably continue to get more popular,” he said. “Overall, we are very satisfied with the level of participation so far.”

Sen. Click Bishop, who led the charge to make the education raffle a reality, ultimately hopes the endowment fund will reach $1 billion. The money generated through the raffle is not likely to ever fully supplant educational funding from the state; however, once the Education Endowment Fund reaches maturity, it would begin to distribute 5% of the percent of market value, based on language included in his 2018 bill.

“I won’t see it in my life, I don’t think,” Bishop told Alaska’s News Source, “but I don’t think the founders of the Permanent Fund ever thought when they instituted the fund that there would be $73 billion in it today.”

Any money left in the raffle fund after prizes are awarded will remain there, to promote bigger prizes in the future. The raffle fund is capped at $300 million, so any surplus will automatically be transferred to the Education Endowment Fund.

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