Generally speaking, the money that gets earmarked goes where it belongs. It's all the other money that wasn't earmarked before-hand that gets pulled out. The

Generally speaking, the money that gets earmarked goes where it belongs. It's all the other money that wasn't earmarked before-hand that gets pulled out. The political promise is usually "Hey, we'll implement a lottery and earmark 100% of the taxes towards education -- that'll be $20 million a year!" to which everybody thinks that $20 million will be added to the $30 million already being spent. But what happens is the $20 million lottery gets added, then the $20 million non-earmarked funds get pulled to pay for <insert other thing here>, such that the schools don't end up with any more or less than they had. Past that, "earmarked for schools" is also a way to reframe over political opponents against the lottery as "voting against education".