PHOENIX — Senate leaders hope to convince more Arizonans to gamble away more of their money as part of their plan to balance the state budget.

The package unveiled Tuesday includes close to $1 billion in borrowing and other financial maneuvers to close a $2 billion gap between anticipated revenues and expenses in the budget year that begins next Tuesday. It also would cut about $360 million in state spending, though the details of which agencies would be affected were not immediately available.

And it would transfer more than $100 million from road projects to finance the Department of Public Safety and defer about $140 million in proposed new schools. That bipartisan plan contrasts with a proposal by House Republicans to borrow just $500 million and make an equal amount in spending cuts.

But the major difference is the idea of financing $1 billion in new buildings and renovations at the state’s three universities by encouraging people to spend more playing the Arizona Lottery, a plan that Art Macias Jr., the agency’s director, said ultimately could boost wagering from the current $472 million a year immediately by 23 percent, and then by an additional 11 percent a year for the next three years after that.

The ultimate goal would be to increase the net profits from about $141 million a year to more than $190 million. That plan starts with increasing the payout on “scratch” tickets to an average of 70 cents of every dollar wagered, a dime more than now.

But Lottery Director Art Macias Jr. said he also wants to install more vending machines throughout the state in places where they have not traditionally been located. That includes “big box” retailers, enabling shoppers to gamble when they go to the store for food, clothing or appliances.

Those machines, which now sell only scratch tickets, would be altered to also sell tickets for online games, where gamblers pick the numbers they think will be chosen.

And to bring it all together, the plan would scrap the current law which limits the Lottery to spending no more than $11 million a year promoting its games.

Macias said he believes his agency ultimately can generate an additional $52 million a year in net profits, the amount the state would need to make its 80 percent share of the annual debt payments for that $1 billion in borrowing. The other 20 percent would be paid by the universities.

Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, who said she does not play the Lottery, said promoting increased gambling is “creative funding devices” to meet legitimate needs.

“I don’t think Arizona can afford to let our universities deteriorate,” she said, saying that is exactly what is happening to the older buildings at the three schools. “This is an opportunity to build those back into standards to keep our universities at a national level.”

Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, said the money is needed to finish the new medical campus being operated jointly by the University of Arizona and Arizona State University in Phoenix, construct other needed buildings and pay for maintenance projects that have been put off at all three universities.

Bee, who also does not gamble, pointed to the rapidly growing number of students now in public schools, many of who will want a higher education. “Our universities are going to be facing a tremendous need for infrastructure to meet that demand,” he said.

“My first preference is always for the state to tackle that responsibility from the general fund,” Bee continued. But he said given the “difficult times” the state is facing, the only way to finance these projects is with a special funding source outside regular tax revenues.

Exactly what projects would be funded from the expanded Lottery proceeds would be decided by the state Board of Regents.

Arzberger said she’s convinced the Lottery can bring in more money, an assessment backed by Macias.

He said the state is expected to sell about $472 million in lottery tickets this budget year, a figure he computes out to about $76 for every man, woman and child in the state. By comparison, he said, that figure is $157 in Texas, $168 in Vermont, $169 in Wisconsin and $331 in Georgia.

“We are an underperforming asset,” he said.

Macias said the aim of his agency is “absolutely” to separate people from their money to make a profit for the state: After paying out winnings and expenses, the Lottery now generates about 30 cents in profit for every dollar wagered. The proceeds fund a variety of programs ranging from job training to wildlife preservation.

He said there’s nothing wrong with the Lottery competing for the dollars that Arizonans spend on entertainment.

“Some people do make a choice between going to the movies and/or buying lottery tickets,” he said. “It’s a form of entertainment. There’s nothing compulsory about playing the Lottery.”

And Macias noted that Arizona voters approved the Lottery in 1980 and ratified that decision again in 2002.

“It has broad and wide support,” he said. “It’s here: Let’s maximize it.”

The idea of funding university capital projects from the Lottery is actually the third incarnation of the plan.

A proposal in January by Gov. Janet Napolitano to let the schools borrow $1.4 billion never even got a hearing.

In May, Napolitano and the university presidents pitched the idea again to legislators, this time as an “economic stimulus” package to create construction jobs. But lawmakers were no more enthusiastic about the $83 million a year in debt payments.