A Texas woman who won the $83.5 million Texas Lotto Jackpot on Feb. 17 learned from the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) that she might never get paid, as KXAN first reported.
The unidentified woman bought her ticket from one of the state’s lottery courier services. Third-party lottery courier service providers have been under scrutiny in Texas since 2023, when a group procured 25 million tickets from four different courier services for a single drawing, winning $95 million.
Lottery courier services let customers purchase lottery tickets and scratch-off tickets online and through mobile apps. These services have operated in Texas since 2019. The woman in this case purchased $20 worth of tickets at an Austin, Texas location called Winners Corner TX. The retailer sells lottery tickets through Jackpocket, a DraftKings subsidiary.
Couriers were fine as long as no one won
Under pressure from Texas lawmakers, TLC issued a statement on Feb. 24. – a week after the woman’s jackpot win.
It said, “the TLC believes couriers are not legal under Texas law and the TLC will exercise its discretion under the SLA to take all appropriate action to stop this activity from occurring, including identifying and investigating any licensed lottery retailer suspected of working in concert with a courier and initiating an enforcement action to revoke the retailer’s sales agent license.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott called on the Texas Rangers to investigate the woman’s recent win -- and the 2023 jackpot win.
It’s not like the TLC wasn’t aware of the popularity of lottery courier services or locations that provide them. For instance, in 2023, Winners Corner was one of the lottery’s top selling retailers with roughly $127 million in ticket sales. And after the 2023 jackpot win, the TLC made changes to prevent bulk ticket sales but took no action to ban or prohibit third-party lottery courier services.
“If they had any qualms about that they should have done something then,” said the recent winner. Her attorney, Randy Howry added, “We played by all the rules, and we’re still playing by all the rules, and we expect that my client should be paid.”
After the TLC’s statement, DraftKings pulled Jackpocket from the state. DraftKings is a member of the Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers, which issued a statement in response to the TLC’s actions.
They said, “Lottery couriers have been legally and responsibly operating in Texas since 2019, while always maintaining a transparent and professional relationship with the Texas Lottery Commission. Throughout this process, the TLC has claimed to have no regulatory authority over courier activities, despite couriers’ persistent requests to be regulated, just as we are in other states. Today’s decision by the TLC to ban lottery courier services is abrupt, disappointing and unnecessary. We will continue to encourage a regulatory solution, such as the one proposed by HB 3201, which allows our millions of Texas customers to continue to safely and conveniently order lottery tickets using our services.”
Although HB 3201 isn’t the only Texas bill dealing with courier services. SB 28 seeks to ban all online or app-based lottery ticket sales.
