Media echo chamber confuses problem and misleads public

Exclusive Lottery Post investigative report

By Kate Northrop

Last year, a New Jersey-based group essentially "bought" a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot by purchasing all the possible number combinations. Now state legislators are eying possible measures to prevent it from happening again, but those solutions may do more harm than good.

A New Jersey-based group called Rook TX gamed the odds by buying nearly every number combination to win the massive prize, and it was entirely legal.

The Houston Chronicle recently found through their own investigation that the Texas Lottery "helped" the investment group win the jackpot, but the newspaper made several assumptions that implied the Lottery broke its own rules to jeopardize the game of chance by aiding the winner and several retailers in particular.

There is no evidence to suggest the Texas Lottery collaborated with the winner, nor did they stray from any of their regular procedures, so why has this drawing caused such an uproar?

It's because the retailer that sold the winning ticket was a business affiliated with a lottery courier, a ticket butler service that legally allows a player to play the lottery online in a state where direct online sales are not yet approved.

State lawmakers, Lottery officials, and players are rightfully disgruntled that a large purchasing group could just about guarantee themselves a jackpot win, but it has led to wildly misguided accusations and proposals against courier services that not only won't solve the problem, but may do more harm than good.

But before looking at a solution, let's review what happened last year.

The drawing takes place — business as usual

On April 22, 2023, The Texas Lottery revealed that nearly every number combination had been sold for that drawing. As it turned out, New Jersey-based group called Rook TX had played the odds to scoop the enormous Texas jackpot in an entirely legal way.

What made this jackpot so appealing was its sheer size and odds of winning - enticing for a large purchasing group looking for a quick profit.

After the drawing, then-Texas Lottery Executive Director Gary Grief announced that coverage for the April 22, 2023 Lotto Texas drawing was "greater than 99%," meaning nearly all possible number combinations had been sold.

Lottery Now was ranked as the top selling retailer for that Lotto Texas drawing, which catalogued just under 11 million tickets sold out of 28 million total across the state.

It is also not an ordinary brick-and-mortar retailer, like more convenience stores that sell lottery tickets, rather a ticket butler courier service. State law technically does not allow the digital sale of lottery tickets, but courier services get around this by buying the physical ticket at a store on behalf of the player and storing it at a secure location. It's not unheard of for these couriers to set up storefronts as a base for their operations and apply for their own license as a physical retailer.

The $95 million winning ticket was sold at Hooked on MT in Colleyville, the storefront owned by Lottery Now.

At the beginning of 2023, the store had one terminal to print tickets. By April 19, the day before sales began for the April 22 jackpot, it had added 12 more terminals, the Lottery Commission told The Houston Chronicle. This allowed for thousands of tickets to be printed in a day.

One could look at the number of lower-tier prizes won valued over $599 to make an educated guess that Rook TX bought up nearly every possible number combination.

While there is no law against buying up an entire draw, The Houston Chronicle alleges that the Texas Lottery Commission "helped rich investors win a $95 million jackpot."

"Behind the scenes, the lottery commission actively helped orchestrate a sure-thing win in a state-sponsored game of chance, seemingly ignoring its own rules in the process," The Houston Chronicle wrote.

A breakdown of the accusations

The Chronicle's statement is loaded with several issues. First, "behind the scenes" is a sensational phrase that implies that the Texas Lottery was performing nefarious work leading up to the draw, hidden from the public eye. In fact, the Lottery was more than happy to discuss its own rules and regulations in conversations with Lottery Post, which confirmed it had indeed followed state-mandated procedures without impeding the fairness of the game.

Second, "sure-thing win" is a half-truth. Despite 100% of all possible combinations not being sold for the draw, "greater than 99%" is certainly just about there. While buying a jackpot might seem simple, however, there are still other factors Rook TX had to consider — what if someone else had also won the jackpot that night?

Assuming Rook TX wanted to take the lump sum payment instead of annuitized payments over 30 years, the jackpot would be worth $57.8 million. Then, the top federal income tax rate of 37% cuts the cash value amount to around $36.4 million. After spending almost $26 million on every possible number combination, that leaves the purchasing group with a $10 million profit — not bad.

The Houston Chronicle points out that Lotto Texas is a "state-sponsored game of chance," implying that the Texas Lottery intentionally eliminated the game's fairness in coming to the aid of one of its 21,000 retailers. The newspaper writes that the ability to secure a jackpot is unfair to players, since they are "at best competing for half the advertised jackpot," but ironically, The Houston Chronicle does not consider that someone else buying a ticket that night had just as much an equal chance of winning the jackpot as Rook TX did, and that Rook TX's plan could have just as easily fallen apart.

Had someone else won that night and split the jackpot, Rook TX would have lost millions. Such is the game of chance, but luckily for Rook TX, their bet still paid off.

Finally, The Houston Chronicle alleged that the Texas Lottery Commission was "seemingly ignoring its own rules." Lottery Post's investigation found that the statement is untrue and assumption based.

"Records show the [Lottery] agency first helped the big buyer by jumping to fill several unusual last-minute requests for large orders of extra equipment," The Houston Chronicle states.

These requests came from several top-selling retailers for the April 22, 2023 draw that all involved rush orders for additional lottery terminals. The Texas Lottery granted Lottery Now's request and rapidly deployed another dozen ticket terminals during the sales rush leading up to the drawing.

A Texas Lottery Commission spokesperson told the newspaper that the agency's response to the request "followed the agency's standard process."

This was not good enough for The Houston Chronicle.

"In its eagerness to help the retailers with their last-minute equipment requests to handle the big operation, the lottery commission also appears to have ignored its own rules," the newspaper writes.

Texas Lottery responds

Texas Lottery Media Relations Division Director Steve Helm responded to The Houston Chronicle's inquiry by essentially calling out their claims as baseless.

"The assertion that retailers did not follow the requirements that a retailer must conduct business other than processing lottery tickets and be open and accessible to the public has not been substantiated," Helm wrote to The Houston Chronicle in an email.

According to the newspaper, Helm declined to say if the agency had investigated whether the rules were followed. However, Texas Lottery Executive Director Ryan Mindell confirmed with Lottery Post that an investigation had determined the rules were indeed followed.

In order to sell lottery tickets, a prospective retailer needs to have achieved several things: acquire a valid retailer license from the Lottery, be in a business other than the business of exclusively selling lottery tickets, and be open and accessible to the public.

For example, one cannot open a store dedicated solely to selling lottery tickets, nor can one open a store and operate a lottery terminal in a backroom locked away from customers.

"It's an item on the license," Mindell told Lottery Post over the phone. "You have to certify that you're going to be selling something other than just lottery tickets."

When applying for the license, retailers self-report that their business provides non-lottery related services or goods for sale. Self-certifying does seem problematic, but it's a limitation of managing a network of 21,000 retailers across the state. In other words, Mindell explained, there is simply not enough Lottery staff to be at every single retailer prior to every single drawing to ensure retailers are indeed offering a non-lottery product at the time of sale. However, he confirmed that Hooked on MT, or Lottery Now, did indeed sell non-lottery products during the sales period for the April 22, 2023 draw.

Mindell also denied that the Lottery was aware of the impending buyout scheme.

"We didn't know this was coming, and we weren't there," Mindell explained. "But, we did do an investigation after the fact, and it does appear they had things [non-lottery merchandise] for sale."

Hooked on MT self-reports on Google that their business offers fishing supplies, Montana souvenirs, clothing, and Texas Lottery tickets.

ALTx Management — owned by lottery courier Lottery.com - was one of the other top-selling retailers for the drawing. A quick Google search indicates that the firm provides management solutions and "a range of services to help clients streamline operations and achieve their business objectives."

These top-selling retailers drew suspicion because they are housed in a nondescript building without any signage advertising the lottery. They're easy to miss if you're looking for a place to stop and buy a lottery ticket.

While it may seem odd, Mindell confirmed with Lottery Post that a business does not have to sell a physical product in order sell lottery tickets. The only requirement is that a prospective retailer is not in the exclusive business of selling lottery tickets alone.

There doesn't seem to be any rule breaking happening so far.

"Yet state regulators appear not to have conducted due diligence," The Houston Chronicle goes on to say. "Texas law requires lottery retailers to conduct business other than ticket sales. They also must be open and accessible to the public when processing tickets."

While the first part of the second sentence in The Houston Chronicle's statement has been debunked, the second part is another half-truth with some commonsense exceptions being left out.

Hooked on MT's business hours listed on Google are 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. While the lottery terminals were publicly available and accessible to customers, Mindell confirmed that the Lottery does have a record of ticket sales being processed outside of those business hours.

This is technically in line with the Lottery's rules. There is nothing to say that a lottery retailer can't print tickets for customers outside of operating hours since how they choose to operate their store is their business.

"There's the idea that the retailer gets to set their hours, and the retailer gets to set their business practices," Mindell explained to Lottery Post. "So, let's say you're at a gas station, and someone [a clerk] is there [at the counter]. There's a line [at the counter] when the Mega Millions jackpot is a billion dollars — if they close, well, I would hope that they would still serve all those customers in that line, right? I think, generally speaking, it's going to be in their interest to. What we try to do is set up a situation where retailers have flexibility to set their business rules within the high-level constraints."

Essentially, all lottery retailers are allowed to sell tickets at any time of their choosing, in line with the business hours they set. The Lottery has no say on when a retailer decides to print tickets, as long as the terminal is publicly accessible to someone walking in the store and not hidden away in a backroom away from customers.

Financial arrangements were different, but still entirely legal

One of the final requirements for a retailer to begin selling lottery tickets is that it must have what's called a "sweep" bank account set up with the Lottery. At the end of a processing week, Mindell explained to Lottery Post, the Texas Comptroller's Office "sweeps" the account. They settle up the retailer's ticket sales minus the ticket validations for in-store claims and pull the amount the Lottery is owed.

Hooked on MT, the retailer that sold the winning $95 million Lotto Texas ticket, did have an active sweep account on file and was swept for the necessary funds.

"Retailers are required to make a bank account available to the Texas Lottery for weekly sweeps and electronic fund transfers before they are licensed and begin selling," Helm explained to Lottery Post in an email. "All licensed retailers, including those that are renewing their licenses, are required to have a bank account on file with the Texas Lottery for the processing of weekly sweeps."

The problem, The Houston Chronicle alleged, is that one of the Lottery's other top-selling retailers, Lottery.com, did not have an active sweep account.

"Yet in its haste to reactivate Lottery.com's license, the commission appears not to have noticed the company's sweep account was closed," the newspaper writes. "As a result, instead of simply collecting the money owed to it, the lottery commission had to invoice the company to wire it millions of dollars after the draw."

First, The Houston Chronicle seems to be taking the meaning of maintaining an active sweep account very literally. To clarify the Lottery's rules, it's merely the default that a sweep account be "on file." There was no wrongful action in the Lottery's "haste to reactivate Lottery.com's license" — as far as the Lottery saw, there was indeed an account "on file."

 The newspaper is also implying that wiring the owed money to the Lottery was a shady transaction under the table. In fact, it's totally valid, and there is more than one way to transfer funds if the initial sweep for the account on file does not go through — that's why this concern over whether the sweep account on file was "active" or "closed" is totally irrelevant.

To be clear, Lottery.com did have an account "on file," confirmed by Helm in a statement to The Houston Chronicle, and that Lottery.com's account was settled up without an issue.

"Lottery.com notified the Texas Lottery that its bank account on file was no longer valid and the retailer wired the amount owed for the April 16-22 invoice week to the Texas Lottery on April 25, 2023," Helm wrote. "After the sweep on April 26, 2023, it was confirmed by the Texas Lottery that Lottery.com's bank account was closed."

While the sweep account is the default method of transferring owed money, the Lottery doesn't really care how they get their funds — they just care that they get the money at all. Having new retailers set up a sweep account as a prerequisite for obtaining a license helps set a smooth precedent for managing the Lottery's vast network of 21,000 retailers on a weekly basis, a complicated task to begin with.

A sweep bank account is not the only way retailers can transfer funds to the Lottery, Mindell confirmed with Lottery Post. There are hitches that can throw a wrench in the works, such as a bank error, switching banks, or other technical errors in the sweep.

The Lottery has a retailer services team that handles the relationships between themselves and their retailer partners, including things to do with licensing and money transfers. Representatives in this team will work with retailers on an individual basis to solve problems, such as bank sweep errors, to ensure that, at the end of the day, the state gets its money and accounts are settled up.

It's not ideal, but a retailer could even bring in a suitcase of cash to a claim center if it means squaring away their balance, Mindell quipped.

"We have retailers of all kinds that are in different situations, and so we're trying to make sure that we work with them and meet them where they are," Mindell continued. "Whether that might be they bring a check by a claim center, whether we work out just a regular bank transfer, whether they say, 'Oh, the account's all set up now. You can sweep it again,' or they give us a new account that we can sweep ... as long as they have the money and they're going to pay it — that's all we're looking for."

Can customer service ever be too good?

The Houston Chronicle cited an alleged correspondence between a Lottery.com representative and a Texas Lottery employee, in which the renewal for its license reportedly took place in the span of seven minutes. Although it is unclear whether it took place over email or through the Lottery's online portal, the rapidity of the communication implies that it was a digital correspondence.

"We are ready to resume operations," the Lottery.com representative wrote on April 19, 2023 at 9:42 a.m.

"Your status is now active," a Texas Lottery representative reportedly replied seven minutes later.

The Houston Chronicle argues that the speed at which this correspondence took place meant that the Lottery did not conduct due diligence in ensuring the retailer was in compliance with the license, and that it led to an oversight on approving a renewal for a retailer with a bank account on file but one that was closed.

Both of those points have been debunked and proven irrelevant, so really, the Lottery's worst crime here is providing efficient customer service.

Retailers have the option of both renewing and applying for a license via physical mail, fax, email, and online. Online and physical processes are treated the same way, but applying online will likely take less time than sending an application through snail mail.

If a business previously held a retailer license that expired, they can renew the license online to resume selling tickets rather than starting over from scratch with a brand-new license application.

"Once received by the Texas Lottery, the application undergoes a compliance review, which includes verifying the retailer's information, and assessing the retailer's compliance with Texas Lottery licensing requirements," Helm told Lottery Post. "The processing time may vary if updates or additional information are needed, but a complete application with no issues is typically approved within five working days. Once approved, the retailer is issued a new license, allowing them to continue selling lottery products."

With a renewal, Mindell separately said he generally expects that it would be a "pretty quick process," especially since the Lottery has already processed the license the first time around, the retailer is already familiar with the process, and the necessary documents might already be electronically uploaded.

Did the Texas Lottery have incentive to provide such quick assistance to this retailer? Absolutely. The first and foremost goal of any state lottery is producing revenue for the state — it's not a secret.

While the general limit for a renewal timeframe is "within five working days," the turnaround for granting a pre-existing retailer the ability to sell tickets is realistically a simple administrative switch that the Lottery can flip at will.

The Lottery's top priority is its fiduciary duty to the state, and with a drawing for a huge jackpot coming up, of course they are going to move quickly to get that retailer back online and deliver those additional terminals to retailers requesting them.

"It's important to remember that these processes followed the agency's previous standard process, which was in place during the time of the April 22, 2023 Lotto Texas drawing," Helm noted. "Under that process, the lottery operator worked with retailers to determine the appropriate number of terminals for a location to meet the needs of players and sales demand. When it was determined that an additional terminal or terminals were appropriate for a location, lottery operator staff notified the Texas Lottery. Texas Lottery staff submitted the request for terminal installation, which was then completed by the lottery operator."

Helm's statement offered additional perspective. This was before the $95 million drawing even took place, and in hindsight, the Lotto Texas buyout was a completely unexpected event that had never occurred in Texas Lottery history. As far as the Lottery was concerned, if a retailer expressed worry about keeping up with a ticket buying demand, the Lottery was incentivized to offer their support.

Lottery Post finds that the Texas Lottery did not treat this drawing or any of its retailers any differently than it would for any other drawing. There is zero evidence that they conspired with the winner to guarantee the win. The Lottery followed all of its own rules and regulations to the T.

The Lottery and state legislators struggling to find a solution

This brings us to the future — how are those rules and regulations changing to prevent a large purchasing group from monopolizing a drawing again?

While the Lottery did follow every single one of its procedures leading up to the April 22, 2023 draw, there does seem to be an issue with the public's perception of fairness in a lottery drawing if a purchasing group were to "buy" a jackpot every time it grew to be large enough to profit from.

In other words, the rules and procedures in place for the April 22, 2023 Lotto Texas draw were created with traditional retail in mind. With the inception of new-age digital courier services, Lottery officials and state legislators are discussing revisions to those rules to in an effort to impede groups using their buying power to their advantage in a game of chance.

It's important to look at the history of lottery couriers in Texas beyond the narrow scope of last year's Lotto Texas draw to understand why legislators have become so aggressive in opposing lottery couriers.

According to the Texas Lottery Commission Staff Report from May 2024, the Texas Lottery was alerted to the presence of a lottery courier company in 2015 when it received its first correspondence from said company.

In 2020, the Texas Lottery Commission amended a rule to remove a definition relating to "a player being present at the terminal" while keeping language that requires all elements of the sale to take place at a licensed location, which accommodates the business model of a courier service.

In 2022, the Texas Lottery Commission testified on couriers during a Texas House Licensing and Administrative Procedures committee hearing on gaming, providing documentation including email correspondence with lottery couriers. However, it provided no recommendation to Legislature regarding courier services and took no additional action.

In April 2023, the $95 million Lotto Texas drawing occurred, and it was the first time the Texas Lottery had ever witnessed a large purchasing group buy up nearly every number combination to just about guarantee the jackpot win. In the eight years since the first courier quietly popped up in the state, no one seemed prepared for the possibility that a jackpot buyout could happen in Texas, and it roused state representatives to begin pointing fingers and demanding solutions.

"There's certainly something about the perception of fairness, and if our players don't believe that the games of Texas are fair, then that's a problem," Mindell told Lottery Post. "We're going to be looking at our processes and say, 'Hey, could we have done things differently? Could we do things better?' I'm always committed to see if there are ways we can do something better, and if we can, we're going to do it."

With the growing popularity of online services in an increasingly digital world, these businesses don't seem to be going anywhere. Since lottery sales have historically relied on a brick-and-mortar retail model, this is a new type of obstacle that lawmakers feel they must regulate so this type of "guaranteed win" scenario doesn't become common practice.

During a Texas Lottery Commission meeting in August, Mindell discussed internal changes that involve slowing down deployment of lottery terminals and running such requests through a higher level of authority when certain conditions are flagged.

"First, I have implemented a process change on how lottery terminals are deployed to retailers," Mindell began. "Among other things, this process will involve a higher level of review, including the general counsel and myself. This will prevent rapid deployment of terminals to retailers who do not have a record of sustained sales, who may be acting in response to temporary demand."

The second implementation involves a software change from the Lottery's systems vendor, IGT, on how lottery terminals process wagers for in-state jackpot games.

"Significantly, neither of these changes should impact any regular business processes of our retailers," Mindell continued. "They won't slow down the queue line when we do have a high jackpot for normal purchasers. But these guardrails should help mitigate the impact to the perception of our games in the future, should bulk purchasing groups become active."

In a more extreme attempt to "fix" the problem last year, Senator Bob Hall sponsored Senate Bill 1820 for the 2023-2024 Texas Legislative Session, which would have outright banned the sale or purchase of lottery tickets digitally via a mobile app or Internet website operated by an independent third-party courier. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate but died in the House.

But lottery courier services are not the problem, and these changes will not solve the issue at its core. None of these proposals in their current state will deter purchasing groups who are persistent enough to organize another buyout. Mindell even says this during his address at the commission meeting.

"My full expectation is that this activity will not stop across the country," Mindell stated. "The guardrails I put in place are no guarantee it will not happen in Texas in the future."

"Banning stuff" rarely works in practice and causes harm

Purchasing groups, as Mindell describes, have historically sought to guarantee jackpot wins when they perceive the odds and financial return to be in their favor, long before lottery couriers have even existed.

Legislators are misdirecting their aim at lottery courier services instead of playing the game in a smart way, so to speak. In fact, a ban would force the state backwards and eliminate nearly a tenth of ticket sales. For the state, that's a significant chunk of revenue, and it's likely that number will only continue to grow. It's clear the consumer desire for digital convenience will never go away, and therefore the state may actually find it's in their best interest to cater to that craving.

Worse yet, instead of fixing the problem, banning courier services would actually cause harm directly to Texas residents.  Why?  Because courier services in Texas only allow Texas residents to make purchases, so the people affected by such a ban would be those Texans who, for example, use courier services because they physically cannot travel to a lottery retailer.

Elderly seniors, disabled residents, shift workers, and others who rely on couriers to play the lottery would suddenly be disenfranchised by such a ban.

The root of the issue is not lottery couriers. It's that someone bought (nearly) every single number combination.

During the commission meeting, Mindell describes an infamous Virginia Lotto drawing in 1992 in which Romanian native Stefan Mandel remotely organized a massive buyout attempt from Australia. He coordinated a network of 2,500 people to visit retailers scattered around Virginia to purchase nearly every number combination in the draw. While they were unsuccessful in buying up all 7 million possible combinations, they still bought a majority of them, won the jackpot, and walked away with $28 million in winnings.

Lottery couriers have the know-how and infrastructure to make large ticket volume purchases, so they can help a buying group, but they are not required, as the Virginia case shows.

The $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot has stirred up a widely held misconception about lottery couriers, one that is easily disproven when you look at individuals like Mandel.

"The jackpot winning ticket was purchased at a retailer that sold over $10 million of tickets in that draw," Mindell went on to say. "That retailer was affiliated with a courier, but that courier did not sell Lotto Texas tickets at that time. Those are the facts."

Contrary to what people seem to believe, the out-of-state purchasing group Rook TX did not directly buy their tickets online through the courier's services. The logical conclusion is that the purchasing group approached several couriers to request their help in automating the operation.

To a purchasing group, a lottery courier service is not appealing for its online component, rather the automation of the business model's ticket buying, storage, and tracking capabilities, as well as their unique capability to handle large purchases. They took Mandel's method of employing 2,500 ticket buyers and instead condensed it to a select number of lottery courier retailers, simplifying the process.

The couriers helped the purchasing group in a side hustle, in addition to the online service they already offer.

That's why banning lottery couriers is not the solution. If a purchasing group wanted to buy out a jackpot that badly, they could go back to the basics à la Mandel. It's just a lot of work and a lot of money.

A targeted solution

What the situation requires is a solution that prevents people or groups from buying all the possible combinations without affecting any other players.  While state legislators contemplate a courier ban that has the same finesse as killing a fly with a bazooka (and doesn't actually kill the fly), Lottery Post Founder Todd Northrop thinks he has a very easy, targeted solution that would fix the problem without impacting any other players.

"The key to preventing buying groups from purchasing all possible number combinations is to upset the risk/reward ratio, so that it becomes financially unfeasible to do it," explained Northrop.

"The solution is to set a very high limit on the number of tickets any individual or group can purchase," Northrop continued. "Make the limit so high that it will never be reached by any big pool of players, such as a company where the employees pool their money together to buy many tickets, yet low enough that the risk/reward ratio is destroyed for someone looking to 'buy' the jackpot."

An example of such a limit would be to cap any individual or group to a purchase of 500,000 or perhaps 1 million lottery tickets.  No lottery player or pool of players would ever buy that many tickets in the normal course of business, yet in the case of Lotto Texas that limit would increase the odds of someone trying to "buy" the jackpot to a very poor 1 in 50 for a 500,000-ticket limit. They could possibly still win the jackpot, but in all likelihood, they will just be contributing a very large amount of money to the next rollover.

The main concern being tackled here is the everyday lottery player's perception of fairness in a drawing, and the solution encourages the original Jeffersonian idea that the Lottery is "an opportunity for the common man to spend a small sum for the possibility of a higher prize." It's an absurdly high limit for the everyday lottery player that it would not matter. How many players do you see putting down $500,000 or $1 million for one drawing? Not only that, but printing that many tickets at one retailer as one person would be physically a nightmare, if not impossible. You may even be refused service, which is eventually what happened to one of Mandel's buyers and prevented his organization from achieving full coverage in the draw.

Remember that what the purchasing group did was entirely legal. It is not illegal to purchase every combination in a drawing. In other words, they did it because they knew they could get away with it.

You can guarantee that a purchasing group is not going to try it if it's illegal to do it. They would absolutely be caught should they try to circumvent the purchase cap, and they would lose their money in trying to make the win happen. It is positively too risky to attempt.

The solution of limiting a player's ticket purchases may seem logistically impossible at first, given cash transactions cannot be traced to a person's identity, but remember how the Iowa Lottery caught Eddie Tipton after he attempted to hack multiple drawings. Look at how the California Lottery quashed the scrutiny over whether Edwin Castro was the rightful owner of a $2 billion Powerball ticket. And finally, take the $95 million Lotto Texas drawing as an example.

Between 2011 and 2015, the Iowa Lottery agonizingly poured over the identity of a mystery lottery winner attempting to claim a $14.3 million Hot Lotto jackpot. Through their investigation, they found out Multi-State Lottery Association Director of Information Security Eddie Tipton had rigged several drawings so he and his associates could win them. His plan was thwarted and he was identified, tried, and convicted, even though his attorney withdrew the attempt to claim the jackpot.

In February 2023, the California Lottery revealed the winner of the world's largest jackpot to be Edwin Castro. While another individual claimed to have been the rightful winner and filed a lawsuit against the California Lottery and Castro, a judge recently determined that the California Lottery had awarded the prize to the correct person. Over the course of the past year, the California Lottery has consistently maintained that they awarded the prize correctly thanks to their security procedures and investigations.

The April 2023 Lotto Texas draw drew national attention and garnered public scrutiny of the Lottery, which encouraged numerous media outlets to pile on to the misconception that lottery couriers are the culprits while the Texas lottery should be fessing up to its nonexistent misdeeds. Meanwhile, no one else seemed to notice that the Lottery's investigation quietly found no harm done, rather it informed the public of a broader issue.

What is the common theme between these three examples? The moral of the story: the Lottery will find out.

Hypothetically, let's say a purchasing group does attempt to buy all number combinations with a limit in place, and one of their tickets wins the jackpot. A group representative brings the ticket to the Lottery to claim the prize.

Think about the arduous amount of legal investigation the Iowa Lottery went through hunting for the identity of Eddie Tipton (an incredibly intricate timeline of events is available on Lottery Post). Considering the Lottery will plainly notice the full coverage of ticket sales in a drawing, are you absolutely sure that they're not going to be able to determine whether that ticketholder surpassed the ticket limit?

As we've learned from several state lotteries, one of the basic security measures in verifying a winner is through store surveillance footage, and there's a lot one can learn just from looking at the video feed alone. After all, it's how they caught Eddie Tipton illegally purchasing a lottery ticket as a Lottery employee, and it's how the California Lottery identified Edwin Castro as the winner.

The terrible odds, potential loss of money, the legal nightmare of being investigated — and found out — by a government entity would guarantee a purchasing group would not attempt a jackpot buyout. In the grand scheme of things, Rook TX made a profit of about $10 million, plus prizes from lower-tier prize categories. Split the haul between the individuals in the group, and there is no way that amount justifies taking the risk.

Especially since the Eddie Tipton event, often dubbed the biggest scandal in lottery history, it cannot be stressed enough how seriously state lotteries take the identity of big jackpot winners. Public trust in games of chance is paramount — it's what continues to feed sales revenue and why Lottery Post has always been such an adamant advocate for traditional mechanical ball drawings. It's why there is such a huge debate over whether lottery winners should be able to remain anonymous. Can the public trust that someone won fair and square?

Fairness and trust are at the heart of every single drawing. It's what keeps players coming back to try again after feeling the disappointment from that losing ticket. It's what stokes that burning hope that one day, you'll win big. It's what fuels the exciting belief that makes every ticket feel like it could be the one.

What happens next

The next legislative session in Texas begins in January 2025. With the April 2023 Lotto Texas draw receiving so much national attention, it is likely that lawmakers may discuss the possibility of either regulating lottery courier companies or banning them outright.

In addition to the changes the Texas Lottery has already made to circumvent purchasing groups, facing the agency and legislators is a huge item on its to-do list: figuring out how lottery courier services can continue producing revenue for the state while keeping games of chance fair for Texans.

"We want to make sure we're getting it right," Mindell emphasized. "Maybe there are a lot of things that we didn't know at the time that we know now. We're going to try to find any way to get better."

Let's hope the solution the state lands on actually solves the fairness problem without harming Texas residents.