Another day, another drama in Texas, as the woman who purchased the $83.5m jackpot winning ticket which helped spark a flurry of regulatory and legislative debate around the integrity of the state lottery files a lawsuit.
“In Texas, a deal is a deal, unless you are the Texas Lottery,” the suit’s background section boldly begins. The lawsuit goes on to question the Texas Lottery’s integrity, adding further fuel to the fire around this topic.
The woman in question, who has not been named in the lawsuit instead being referred to throughout as ‘Jane Doe’, purchased a lottery ticket via the lottery courier app Jackpocket on 17 February 2025.
This ticket was subsequently purchased on her behalf by the courier at a shop in Austin, Texas, called ‘Winners Corner’. However, the Texas Lottery would later withhold the ticket’s winnings, a jackpot of $83.5m. Complicating matters was the fact that Winners Corner is owned by DraftKings, the second largest sportsbook by market share in the US and the owner of Jackpocket.
This turn of events prompted some to question the integrity of the Texas Lottery courier system and whether an instance of fraud had taken place. The Commission also later decided to ban lottery couriers, prompting even more legislative debate.
Suit takes aim at TLC leadership
The Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) is taking the brunt of the lawsuit’s criticism.
This comes just two weeks after a bill passed the State Senate approving plans to abolish the TLC and pass regulatory jurisdiction over to another agency, the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation. SB 3070 subsequently passed the House of Representatives on 26 May, and has now been sent back to the Senate for concurrence due to some minor changes. After this it will await signature from Texas Governor Greg Abbott – so it seems that the TLC’s days are numbered.
The February jackpot winner may be hoping to claim her prize from the TLC before it is no more. The litigation further attempts to poke holes in the TLC’s logic by arguing that the fact decision to ban couriers in late February occurred after the $83.5m ticket was purchased makes the ban irrelevant to this ticket purchase.
In addition, a familiar argument has been raised about the validity of the TLC’s regulatory remit over lottery couriers, The suit states that back in 2018, the TLC told Jackpocket that the courier did not require a licence or authorisation from the regulator to operate in Texas.
This mirrors an argument made by the couriers themselves, specifically Lotto.com, which filed a petition against the TLC’s courier ban, citing multiple examples of communications between the Commission and couriers in which the body stated that it does not regulate couriers, only the Texas Lottery itself and the various retailers in its network.
It is important to note that the controversy around lottery couriers in Texas dates back much further than this case. The main catalyst for the regulatory debate occurred back in 2023, when a group of people spent $25m to purchase around 99% of winning lottery combinations and subsequently claim a $95m jackpot.
In Jane Doe’s case, the main question concerned whether or not the fact the winning ticket was owned by Jackpocket’s parent firm, DraftKings, was a threat to lottery integrity or not.
Though there has been some reporting that a bulk purchase may have occurred due to the plaintiff apparently buying 10 tickets, it is difficult to consider this a bulk purchase when compared to the $25m incident described above – and people buying a handful of lottery tickets at at a time is hardly an irregular occurrence in Texas, or indeed any other state or country.
Couriers and bulk purchases aside, Jane Doe’s overall argument is that by denying her the $83.5m payout the TLC and its Acting Executive Director, Sergio Rey, are failing to meet the integrity and responsibility standards required by a state lottery. The plaintiff is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from the TLC and Rey as a result.
“The professed core values of the Texas Lottery are Integrity and Responsibility,” the litigation reads. “Every Texan knows what that should mean when it comes to the lottery – if you win, you should get paid.
“When you win, the Lottery should pay you – not stall, not waffle, not hem, not haw, not try and change the rules and not try to back out of the deal. Lotteries with integrity pay the winners.
“Responsible lotteries pay the winners. Anything short of that destroys the integrity of the lottery and shatters the confidence of those who play it.”