Some state legislators seem to think that the Texas State Lottery is beyond saving, as a bill has entered the state Senate that will abolish the institution if approved.
Senator Bob Hall of the Republican Party, already one of the more vocal voices in the debate around lottery integrity in Texas, is the main proponent of the bill, SB 1988.
If approved by Texas legislators – the 31 members of the Senate and 150 of the House of Representatives – the legislation would abolish the Texas Lottery and the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC).
All charitable bingo games would be subsequently transferred to another state agency, though it is not clear which one this would be. It would, however, leave the state without any lottery, joining Alabama, Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Nevada as the only states to have no form of lottery.
“There is no way to reorganize, restructure or restore the integrity of the government-run Texas Lottery,” Hall remarked when launching the Bill.
The Bill is the culmination of three months of intense public debate around the integrity of the Texas Lottery and the TLC, with the latter undergoing extensive criticism and scrutiny.
Hall, along with fellow Republican Senator Bryan Hughes, has been one of the most vocal legislative critics of the lottery. Both he and Hughes have already sponsored one piece of legislation around the lottery, though this targets retailersrather than the lottery itself.
His latest piece of legislation goes beyond this, as Hall seems to think that the lottery cannot be salvaged. During a Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing earlier this week, Hall harshly questioned the Acting Chair of the TLC, Sergio Ray, accusing the lottery of corruption in the process.
The main impetus for this month’s long debate was a 2023 incident in which an individual or group of individuals spent $25m to purchase 99% of winning lottery ticket combinations, netting those involved a $95m jackpot win.
Hall and other legislators believe this is indicative of corruption at the lottery and that the only way to resolve this is to shut it down. While this would lose the Texas state government $2bn in revenue each year, Hall is adamant that the lottery’s charitable funding does not even go that far, supporting the equivalent of three public school days each year.
No mention of couriers, but not off the hook….
As stated above, the main motivation behind Texas legislators’ ire at the lottery was the 2023 $95m jackpot buyout incident. However, a more recent incident has further amplified tension and criticism.
Back in February, a woman purchased a winning ticket for a $83.5m jackpot via Jackpocket, a courier app. The TLC refused to pay out the ticket though, and accusations have been made due to the ticket being purchased from a Jackpocket-owned retailer.
This devolved into a spat involving lottery couriers, Texas legislators and the TLC, with the latter moving to ban couriers. The couriers – the likes of Lotto.com, Lottery.com, Jackpot.com and Jackpocket.com – fought back under the umbrella of the Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers (CTLC).
Lotto.com has been particularly active, filing a legal petition against the TLC’s ban, criticising the leadership of the former Executive Directors Ryan Mindell and Gary Grief, and arguing that the TLC had knowledge of the controversial 2023 buyout incident.
If Hall’s legislation is passed, the couriers will of course lose one of their main adversaries in the TLC. They will, however, also lose their main sonic of business in the lottery itself, and last but not least, legislators and policymakers are hardly on the courier’s side in all this.
On his X (formerly Twitter) profile, Hall has also shared a video post from Texas Lt Governor, Dan Patrick, who has been particularly vocal about lottery couriers.
On his X (formerly Twitter) profile, Hall has also shared a video post from Texas Lt Governor, Dan Patrick, who has been particularly vocal about lottery couriers.
In the video, Patrick criticises the practice while standing in a lottery retailer store, showing that many Texan political figures are more than fed up with both the lottery and the couriers that have been working with it.