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.
Can you truly call the lottery a game of chance if someone has the option to buy nearly all the numbers available? That’s the question officials in Texas are asking as they scrutinize two monster Jackpot wins and the system that allowed them to win.
The unusual 2023 lottery. According to a detailed investigation by the Houston Chronicle, the April 22, 2023 lottery in Texas was strange for several reasons. First, there were the ticket sales. While a regular lottery tends to sell between 1-2 million tickets, the April 2023 game sold more than 28 million. Then, there was the size of the jackpot: $95 million. It was one of the largest jackpots in Texas history and had gone without a winner for seven months.
Furthermore, according to the Chronicle, most of the tickets for that game had been sold at four authorized stores. All the stores were affiliated with digital app companies that let players buy tickets online and send couriers to pick it up in-store.
After months of build-up, a jackpot winner finally appeared in April 2023. Except that the winner wasn’t a person, but rather a limited partnership based in New Jersey called Rook TX.
Buying a jackpot. In 2024, the Chronicle revealed that the $95 million jackpot had essentially been bought by one player, Rook TX, that had taken the lottery’s game of chance system to the extreme. After analyzing Lotto Texas, a game where six numbers are chosen out of 54, the player had determined that there were 25.8 million combinations. Given that each ticket cost $1, data suggested that Rook TX had proceeded to buy the 25.8 million combinations available.
The odds were in Rook TX’s favor. It only had to compete against people buying in to the April 22 game, which amounted to 2.3 million. All in all, there was an 8% chance that Rook TX would have to share the jackpot with someone else who had also guessed the correct numbers.
If Rook TX ended up being the singular winner, it would take in $57.8 million after taxes and the cost of tickets—more than double its original investment.
Is it legal? Contrary to popular belief, there are no laws or rules against buying millions of tickets to ensure a lottery win in Texas.
However, what the Texas Lottery Commission did might not be. As the months went on, the media revealed questionable behavior the agency had carried out in the days leading up to the draw of the $95 million jackpot. Specifically, Texas Lottery officials had approved the delivery of dozens of terminals to stores affiliated with digital app companies even though those stores didn’t have a history of selling tickets.
The fallout. News about how Rook TX hacked the lottery system—legally, to be clear—quickly made it to the ears of Texas state lawmakers, who weren’t too pleased. In February, the Texas Lottery Commission said it would ban courier services that allow lottery tickets to be bought remotely from operating in the state. In addition, the commission said that any retailer that worked with a courier service would have its license revoked.
A class action lawsuit against members of the Texas Lottery Commission was also filed in February. The suit alleges fraud, illegally selling tickets, and manipulating the outcome of the games. Proceeds from the Texas Lottery game are mainly used to fund public education.
State Sen. Bob Hall said in a statement that he believed the Texas Lottery Commission had failed to do its job.
“At best the lottery commissioners were deliberately indifferent,” Hall said. “At worst, they are co-conspirators in the vastest financial crime since Enron.”
The second case. But the lottery drama doesn’t stop there. In February, a single player won an $85.3 million jackpot. The winner used the courier service Jackpocket to buy their tickets and in total purchased 10 entries, the company stated.
The role of courier services was again thrust into the spotlight in this case. When state officials visited the store that sold the tickets, also owned by Jackpocket, they found that the store kept a large amount of lottery machines in the back in places that were hidden from the public.
“We’re not suggesting anything illegal, but this is not the way the Lottery was designed to operate,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick., who visited the store, said in a video. “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.”
In the latest twist, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that he had asked the Texas Rangers to look into both lottery wins.
“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.
Image | Mark Ou
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