You've been around long enough that you have to have seen posts about lottery clubs, except that they're far more commonly referred to as pools. I'm not positive, but I think I remember reading about at least one pool where a member bought two chances instead of the one that other members bought. Whether that memory is accurate or not, a lottery ticket is a lot like other types of property and there's no reason that shared ownership requires equal shares. If the pool's rules allow it one member could pay as much as all other embers combined and own half of each ticket.
Lottery pools aren't a way around gift taxes because gift taxes only apply when something is gifted and also has a value in excess of the exclusion ($15,000 for 2021). Whatever your share of a winning ticket might be, if you acquired that share before the drawing the value of your share was some fraction of the ticket price, and that price was a lot less than 15k. If you acquired the share by paying for it as part of a pool then it's not a gift, assuming you paid a fair market price. OTOH, if a winner gives you share after the drawing then the value of the share is probably based on the prize that the ticket is entitled to.
I say "probably" because the IRS hasn't always been consistent. The IRS has ruled that shares gifted after the drawing were subject to the gift tax, but quite some time ago a Chicago(?) winner was allowed to share with family after initially claiming the win for himself. Typically when the IRS allows sharing without a gift tax it's based on an established agreement or evidence of past sharing. If you want to share anything over 16k per person (the 2022 exclusion) you should do something to make it clear that the ticket is shared before it becomes a winner. The best way would be a written agreement. Of course in that case you'll need to share if you win any prize big enough to create an official record.
"I wonder why they went a Florida-based lawyer."
The lawyer has represented multiple previous winners, advertises himself as a lottery lawyer, and (unlike some lottery lawyers) hasn't been arrested for defrauding his clients.
