Lottery executives plead ignorance of any scheme

AUSTIN – The Houston Chronicle reports that in recent weeks, state lawmakers have expressed growing anger at the Texas Lottery Commission for its supporting role in a 2023 Lotto Texas draw, in which one player purchased enough tickets to guarantee the winning number combination for what became a $95 million jackpot. In response, executives at the agency have insisted that they could not have prevented the operation because they didn’t know what was happening until it was already well underway. Yet a growing body of evidence strongly suggests lottery officials were well aware of the plan almost from the beginning. And they still chose to ignore basic fair play — helping a single player win a guaranteed jackpot meant ordinary lottery players were unknowingly competing for only half the advertised prize — in favor of selling more tickets. In legislative hearings, lottery executives and other witnesses have confirmed the Houston Chronicle’s reporting over the past year. In April 2023, an entity called Rook TX effectively purchased the jackpot, collecting a one-time payment of $57.8 million, by acquiring virtually all of the 25.8 million possible number combinations.

The operation was planned in Malta and funded by a London betting company. It was carried out by four Texas retailers, all connected to online sales companies called couriers. The Texas Lottery Commission helped in several ways behind the scenes. Prior to the draw, it filled rush orders from the retailers requesting dozens of extra terminals — even though three had sold few, if any tickets in the previous months. The agency also did not challenge organizers’ method of rapidly entering millions of ticket orders into state terminals. Their use of personal iPads and preprogrammed QR codes appeared to skirt lottery regulations. Executive Director Ryan Mindell has said repeatedly that the agency could not have interrupted the big buy because lottery officials were unaware of organizers’ intentions until the operation was well underway. “We certainly had no direct interaction with this bulk purchasing group,” he said during an August 2024 meeting of the Sunset Advisory Committee, which is conducting a once-a-decade audit of the agency’s operations. “We really were not aware of their activity until we saw the increased level of sales that were happening.”