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It is a scandal that shook the lottery industry in Texas to its core last year and was widely covered here at Gambling911.com.
A $83.5 million lottery win in early 2025 came under intensive scrutiny, and with good reason.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the time announced an investigation into the matter.
There were reports at the time that millions of dollars worth of lottery tickets were purchased.
The Texas Lottery, one of the largest in the U.S., faced mounting scrutiny from state leaders over how the winners that jackpot and a $95 million prize in 2023 purchased their odds-defying tickets. Both were among the largest jackpots in the history of the Texas lottery.
At the heart of the issue, Texas officials said, was whether the games are on a level playing field. The companies that purchase lottery tickets for customers remotely, also known as couriers, are at the heart of the investigation.
The Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) would ultimately go on to ban couriers.
The The Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers (CTLC) provided a statement to Gambling911.com at the time expressing disappointment with the Lottery.
"In 1991, Texans voted to approve the Texas Lottery and entrusted the Texas Legislature and the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) with the responsibility of protecting its integrity. Upholding the faith of Texans in a fair lottery should be of paramount importance."
Traced Back to Malta
The scandal stretches back to April 2023, according to The Houston Chronicle.
The Houston Chronicle report details how a parimutuel betting site from England (Colossus Bets) and a software provider from Malta (Spinola Gaming) allegedly colluded with one another to purchase 25.8 million tickets (at $1 each) for a Lotto Texas draw — resulting in the $95 million jackpot win.
From The Houston Chronicle:
An entity called Rook TX effectively purchased the jackpot, collecting a one-time payment of $57.8 million, by acquiring virtually all of the 25.8 million possible number combinations. The operation was planned in Malta and funded by a London betting company. It was carried out by four Texas retailers, all connected to online sales companies called couriers.
The Texas Lottery Commission helped in several ways behind the scenes. Prior to the draw, it filled rush orders from the retailers requesting dozens of extra terminals — even though three had sold few, if any tickets in the previous months.
“Texas citizens deserve far better than bad actors getting rich off of a lottery system that is open to exploitation, and we will hold anyone who engages in illegal activity accountable,” Paxton said in a statement.
Couriers are companies that buy and send lottery tickets on behalf of customers online. The practice bypasses state law that requires tickets to be purchased in person.
The Joker
It's a fascinating read, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
"A global team of gambling whizzes hatched a scheme to snag the jackpot; millions of tickets in 72 hours."
You'll need to check out the article here for more, but an excerpt appears below.
In the spring of 2023, a London banker-turned-bookmaker reached out to a few contacts with an audacious request: Can you help me take down the Texas lottery?
Bernard Marantelli had a plan in mind. He and his partners would buy nearly every possible number in a coming drawing. There were 25.8 million potential number combinations. The tickets were $1 apiece. The jackpot was heading to $95 million. If nobody else also picked the winning numbers, the profit would be nearly $60 million.
Marantelli flew to the U.S. with a few trusted lieutenants. They set up shop in a defunct dentist’s office, a warehouse and two other spots in Texas. The crew worked out a way to get official ticket-printing terminals. Trucks hauled in dozens of them and reams of paper.
Over three days, the machines—manned by a disparate bunch of associates and some of their children—screeched away nearly around the clock, spitting out 100 or more tickets every second. Texas politicians later likened the operation to a sweatshop.
The WSJ piece highlights how this lottery scheme has targeted other states besides Texas, and there's been some success.
A group of Princeton University graduates, incorporated under the name Black Swan Capital, has won millions in recent years playing scratch-off tickets and other lottery games in various states. Lottery officials and others who have tracked their tactics say they appear to calculate when the math is most in their favor, using publicly available information such as how many prizes are in a game and how many remain unclaimed. When the odds are right, they swoop in, hoping to win back more money than they spend.
One Black Swan team member collected a $5 million win in Missouri in 2019; another won $10 million in North Carolina in 2022. In Maryland, a Black Swan team used lottery machines in four liquor stores for four days to win a $2.6 million prize.
The Joker Speaks
From PlayUSA:
Zeljko Ranogajec, long known in betting circles as “the Joker” (and sometimes the “Loch Ness Monster”), told The Sydney Morning Herald he funded a large-scale effort to purchase nearly every number combination in the April 22, 2023, Texas Lottery draw after the jackpot swelled to $95 million following 93 rollovers.
The syndicate spent more than $25 million on $1 tickets – covering roughly 99% of combinations – and coordinated licensed couriers, dozens of terminals, and improvised print sites to produce millions of entries at rates approaching 100 tickets per second.
The Joker was not present in Texas. But his people gathered in a Texas hotel room for the drawing.
Ranogajec said, “I was involved in the funding of the Texas lottery play,” and accused the state system of enabling the operation: “The Texas Lottery Commission facilitated the play by providing terminals, paper, and ink.”
David Lieber of the Denton Record-Chonicle notes that Gary Grief, the lottery commission’s ex-executive director, would seemingly be the one under investigation for helping to run the operation. Grief has not commented. The commission has been disbanded, and the lottery is now overseen by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
- Alejandro Boticelli, Gambling911.com
