Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
Does it matter whether you bought your lottery ticket in-person or online? According to officials in Texas, it does, but one $83.5-million-prize winner isn’t having it.
The lawsuit. A woman in Texas, known only as “Jane Doe,” is suing the state’s lottery commission for not paying out her $85.3 million jackpot, CNN reported. Doe won the jackpot more than three months ago but has still not received payment.
“Every Texan knows what that should mean when it comes to the lottery – if you win, you should get paid,” the suit states. “It shouldn’t take a lawsuit to get paid when you win the lottery. But that’s exactly what has happened here.”
What’s the problem? Per the lawsuit, Doe claims the Texas Lottery is refusing to pay her because of how she acquired her ticket, citing rule changes. Doe bought her ticket using an app called Jackpocket on Feb. 17. She won the drawing that same day.
While the method used to purchase a lottery ticket might not have attracted attention before, there was already a storm brewing over in Texas over the use of courier services in the state’s lottery. In 2023, a group of investors bought 25 million Texas lottery tickets — essentially every possible combination — and managed to win a $95 million jackpot.
A week after Doe bought her ticket with Jackpocket, Ryan Mindell, the executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, announced that his organization was banning courier services in the state.
That same day, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Rangers to investigate the $95 million jackpot won in 2023 and Doe’s $83.5 million jackpot to “identify any potential wrongdoing.”
“Texans must be able to trust in our state's lottery system and know that the lottery is conducted with integrity and lawfully,” Abbott said in a statement on Feb. 24.
Lottery couriers. Apps like Jackpocket are known as lottery courier services, which are third-party entities that allow users to buy lottery tickets online. After couriers receive an order, they purchase the ticket at an authorized retailer. Some courier services describe themselves as the “UberEats of the lottery,” though that description isn’t exactly accurate.
As explained by The Texas Tribune, many courier services own the retailers where they print out the tickets bought through their apps. These aren’t regular stores. Some of them have back rooms filled with lottery machines and workers, which spend hours a day scratching off tickets and fulfilling orders.
Doe’s ticket was purchased at one of the stores owned by Jackpocket, called Winners Corner, in Austin, Texas. The state’s Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, visited the store, which appeared to sell mostly board games. It had a large amount of lottery terminals hidden from public view.
“We’re not suggesting anything illegal, but this is not the way the Lottery was designed to operate,” Patrick said in video posted on X. “It was designed to operate by someone coming into a store, giving someone cash and getting a ticket back—not for machines behind walls, and not from a courier service and a retailer all being connected.”
The $85.3 million jackpot. Whether Doe will ever be paid out her $83.5 million jackpot is still unclear. For now, her attorneys have filed an injunction to prevent Texas Lottery officials from using her winnings to pay other lottery winners.
If the injunction isn’t granted, Doe’s attorneys argue that it could affect and diminish her winnings.
Image | Peaton Hugo | dylan nolte
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