State of Texas: $83.5 million lottery jackpot payment on hold for Texas winner

Yahoo

23-03-2025

AUSTIN (Nexstar) – A Texas woman who won an $83.5 million jackpot in February through a courier service said the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) advised her the winnings may never be paid out as the Texas Rangers investigate the lottery drawing.
'I'm being treated as the bad guy,' the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Nexstar.
The woman used Jackpocket, an app that allows customers to buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs remotely, to purchase $20 worth of Texas Lotto tickets for the February 17 drawing. Couriers are mobile and online applications that buy lottery tickets on people's behalf for a service fee.
Lottery courier services have come under fire from many Texas lawmakers who feel they are illegal under current state law, and are upset the TLC allowed the services to operate in the state. The Texas Senate passed a bill that would ban courier services.
After her lottery win — and after increased pressure from state lawmakers — the TLC issued a news release saying lottery courier services are not legal in Texas, and it is proposing a rule change that would revoke the license of any retailer that works with a courier service.
Despite 'ban,' two lottery couriers still operating in Texas
Later that same day, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Rangers to investigate her lottery win and a $95 million jackpot win in 2023, where a single group was able to purchase more than $25 million worth of tickets and buy almost every combination of numbers. An investigation found the group purchased the tickets from four different retailers that work with courier services.
The woman's attorney, Randy Howry, said his client is the rightful winner of the Feb. 17 drawing and deserves to be paid her winnings.
'We played by all the rules, and we're still playing by all the rules and we expect that my client should be paid,' Howry said.
Comparing lottery wins
'Sometimes there are reasons to investigate things, but I don't think mine is one of them,' the woman said. She said she does not understand why she is being grouped with the other 2023 jackpot win, which, in her opinion, is far more questionable.
Governor directs Texas Rangers to investigate recent lottery jackpot wins
One major difference is the volume of tickets purchased in each lottery win. In the 2023 win, more than 25 million tickets were sold to one group. Lawmakers questioned how that many tickets could be printed out in a 72-hour window, and one lawmaker suggested it was a case of money laundering.
The woman who won the lottery in 2025 paid $20, far fewer than the 'bulk purchasing' event that took place in 2023. The commission paid out the $95 million jackpot to an entity called Rook TX and eventually made changes to prevent another bulk purchasing event, but did not stop the use of courier services.
'If they had any qualms about that they should have done something then,' the woman said.
What's next?
The woman was in Austin on Tuesday to present her winning ticket to the TLC. Typically, the commission would pay out the winnings within three days after the ticket is presented, according to Howry.
But Howry said the general counsel for the TLC told him on Tuesday that the commission would not make a decision on if it would pay out the winnings until the Texas Rangers completes its investigation.
'How unfair would it be if she's not paid her winnings?' Howry questioned. 'Is that going to give confidence to those other people out there who want to play the Texas lottery?'
He added if the winnings are not paid out within three days he and his client will consider all options, including litigation. Nexstar reached out to the TLC to confirm it is waiting to pay out the winnings until the investigation is over. A spokesperson for the agency did confirm the Feb. 17 Lotto Texas winner has come forward, and that the 'claim is being reviewed under the Commission's claim validation requirements and is the subject of external investigations.'
A spokesperson for Jackpocket, which is a DraftKings subsidiary, said the courier service has been operating in Texas since 2019 in compliance with the TLC. The spokesperson said, 'Despite our proven track record of compliance and commitment to responsible gaming, the Texas Lottery Commission has issued a new policy prohibiting our services, effective immediately. As a result, we are suspending lottery courier operations in Texas.'
The spokesperson added the company is working with policymakers to craft regulations that would allow lottery courier services to continue in the state.
The woman who purchased the winning ticket said she hopes things are settled fast and she receives her money.
'This is an opportunity for me to do other things with my life and I want to be able to go do those,' she said.
A spokesperson for the Governor's Office said, 'Governor Abbott fully supports the Texas Rangers as they investigate potential issues, and he expects the lottery to work within the bounds of the law.'
KXAN took the findings of our team's year-long investigation into hospital safety straight to lawmakers, testifying before a Senate panel about a bill sparked by our reporting that supporters say could save lives.
'This is not a partisan issue,' former Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly told lawmakers at Tuesday's public hearing. 'This is a life-safety issue.'
Less than a year after Kelly first reacted to our investigation — asking staff to 'initiate an ordinance change' while watching our report — she and KXAN investigative reporter Matt Grant were invited by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, to testify in front of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.
'Common sense'
Under Senate Bill 660, which West filed, crash-tested safety bollards would be required at most Texas hospitals — except those in rural areas. The push is sparked by a deadly incident in Austin last year.
'I took action because I saw a clear and present danger,' Kelly said. 'One that had already cost lives and would continue to do so unless we did something about it.'
'On Feb. 13, 2024, a driver, who was drunk, according to the toxicology report, crashed into the lobby of St. David's North Austin Medical Center, killing herself and seriously injuring five others including Levi and Nadia Bernard and their two toddlers,' Grant told the committee.
The family shared their story exclusively with KXAN.
State lawmakers are now considering broadening Austin's ordinance, which Kelly initiated. As of Dec. 23, the city now requires crash-rated security bollards at new hospitals and existing ones that expand.
Using data from the nonprofit Storefront Safety Council, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), police, EMS and media reports, KXAN found hundreds of crashes across the country over the past decade. That includes incidents last year in College Station, Navasota and Fort Worth. Our findings were cited by West during the public hearing.
'KXAN Television in Austin have identified more than 400 vehicle crashes at or into medical centers nationwide in the last decade,' West said. 'Four hundred, members!'
READ: Full text of Senate Bill 660, sparked by KXAN investigation
'I didn't realize there were that many crashes across our nation and state,' said Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the committee chair. 'So, we appreciate your investigative reporting and bringing this to the forefront.'
'We commend Matt Grant and his investigative team for doing the digging here and figuring out just how big this problem is,' said Ware Wendell with the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Texas Watch, who testified in support of the bollard proposal.
'It's important to secure these facilities,' said Wendell. 'Our hospitals are critical infrastructure.'
The bill — which has bipartisan support — was filed by West in response to KXAN's investigation into the deadly crash at St. David's North Austin Medical Center.
'We re-emphasize to the Bernard family: What happened to you is a tragedy and it shouldn't happen again in the state of Texas,' West previously told us. 'And, I'm going to do everything I can in my power to make sure it doesn't happen again.'
Hospital safety bill gets bipartisan support a year after deadly St. David's crash
Kolkhorst previously called West's proposal 'common sense.' Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, who also sits on the committee, called what KXAN uncovered 'a major problem.'
'If [hospitals] aren't going to' install crash-rated bollards, Hall warned from his Capitol office, 'then we in the legislature have a responsibility to protect the people of Texas.'
'St. David's North did install bollards after we started asking questions, but the hospital will not tell us if they are rated to stop a similar incident,' Grant said.
St. David's said it does not comment on pending legislation.
'Without a uniform statewide approach,' Grant told lawmakers, 'we found a patchwork system where some hospitals are protected while others remain vulnerable.'
'Unfunded mandate'
Associations representing Texas nurses and physicians have spoken positively about the bill. The safety steps are opposed by the Texas Hospital Association, which calls them 'misguided' and 'an unreasonable administrative cost burden.'
'Hospitals should be allowed to assess for themselves the physical layout of the emergency department, traffic flow, road designs, other factors that are going to be unique to every hospital,' said THA senior vice president and general counsel Steve Wohleb. 'Rather than implementing a one-size-fits-all mandate on a single industry that doesn't, to our knowledge, pose a greater safety risk to the public than many other types of businesses.'
'I know it's an unfunded mandate,' Kolkhorst responded, 'but, I think, there's maybe someplace where we can maybe land this.'
Kolkhorst said she wants to work with the THA on the bill.
After giving her testimony, Kelly said she is hopeful that the bill will pass.
'We took action based on research that you all did,' she told KXAN about the Austin ordinance in response to the deadly incident at St. David's North. 'In order to ensure that this doesn't happen to anyone else ever again.'
The bill was left pending late Tuesday evening.
If it gets voted out of committee, it will go to the full Senate for a vote followed by the House for consideration.
A push toward what President Donald Trump's administration has called a 'Golden Era of American Energy Dominance' could be in trouble. Experts warn that the development of new energy sources, like advanced nuclear reactors and cold fusion, could be facing delays as a result of budget cuts and defunding efforts in the federal government.
'Research universities are being caught up in a broader series of actions,' said Rob Bradner, a Washington D.C.-based attorney and partner with Holland & Knight.
In January, President Trump issued an executive order calling for a pause on federal grants. In February, the judicial branch ordered the administration to unfreeze the funds.
'We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,' Trump said at the time.
However, according to Bradner, a pause on the issuance of new research grants is creating a pipeline problem which could see many new energy projects delayed.
'Universities are starting to take preemptive action to cut back and to reduce the number of graduate students they're bringing in for next year,' Bradner said, meaning fewer people who can focus on research projects.
Advanced nuclear reactors
'I think that ripple (effect) is going to come through in the next year,' said Associate Professor Kevin Clarno with the University of Texas.
Clarno studies one of the new types of reactors that could power Texas. Molten salt nuclear reactors can provide greater heat than traditional nuclear reactors, produce more energy and can even be used to desalinate water.
'In a solid fuel traditional reactor, you're worried about making sure the fuel doesn't melt. In a Molten Salt Reactor, you start out with fuel that's already melted, and so the worst case scenario is it has a leak, it has an accident. And when it hits the ground and it starts to solidify, it starts to cool off,' Clarno said.
One of these reactors will soon be built at Abilene Christian University. That reactor, built with private money, will serve as an example for future reactors. It will also provide data for engineers and researchers.
Clarno said the federal government funds several other nuclear power projects through the Department of Energy.
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'They have been funding a lot of commercial companies to 'Hey, let's help you get to the process that you can commercialize these technologies,'' Clarno said.
Energy demand grows in Texas
The development of these new reactors is especially important in Texas.
In February, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, issued a new report that forecasted the Texas grid doubling in demand over the next 10 years.
'The Texas grid is about 85,000 megawatts. That's been growing over time, and it's generally expected to start growing even faster,' said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist at the University of Texas.
Driving this demand is a push for new data centers in Texas.
'They want to have power 24/7. Power that doesn't cycle up in the afternoon and down during the night like the residential sector does,' Rhodes said.
This is another advantage with nuclear power. Unlike wind and solar, whose energy generation changes throughout the day, nuclear power is consistent.
Currently, two nuclear power plants operate in Texas and they provide 10% of the state's power supply.
Prioritizing new energy
The advancement of nuclear reactors is a priority of the Trump administration. At a recent press conference at Los Alamos in New Mexico, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said 'almost nothing' has happened in nuclear development in decades.
EXPLORE: Texas Energy Crossroads project highlights future of industry in the state
Wright, who served on the board of a small nuclear reactor company called Oklo prior to joining the administration, included developing advanced nuclear reactors in his list of priorities.
That list was released on Feb. 5, 2025.
When will delays hit energy development?
Clarno said the work on new nuclear power will be delayed if cuts hit the national labs. He said many private labs rely on these labs to perform necessary research as part of reactor development.
'There is risk, starting, really, in October, that the National Labs aren't going to be able to deliver on those efforts that they're doing to assist the companies,' Clarno said.
'The administration is expected to, more broadly, push for reductions in indirect costs on grants outside of (the National Institutes of Health) to National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, other major research funders,' Bradner said.
According to Bradner, the administration is also asking agencies not to pay on existing grants. He said this is mostly related to grants for green energy that were funded during the Biden administration.
'Unfortunately people are saying, 'Well, I may have to trim back on that, and I may not be able to do research that has lots of regulatory compliance or lots of other administrative burdens,'' Bradner said.
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All of this leads to more delays in the development of future energy, according to Clarno.
'We're probably going to have to expand natural gas. You know, nuclear is probably a solution that's more at least a decade away, but the AI revolution is here today, and it needs power today,' Rhodes said.
Solutions on Texas
There is some movement in Texas to help fund these projects. On March 7, Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, filed Senate Bill 2060 as part of the 89th legislative session.
Called the Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Act, the bill would provide the Public Utility Commission access to the Texas Energy Fund. The commission can use these funds for grants to promote the development of advanced nuclear reactor projects in Texas.
That bill has not yet been referred to a committee.
Among Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's top priorities this legislative session is 'requiring local law enforcement to assist the Federal Government's deportation efforts.' The bill filed to achieve his goal was left pending in the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday.
Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) — filed by State Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown — would require all Texas counties with 100,000 or more people to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) 287(g) program.
There are three versions of the program; the 'Jail Enforcement Model,' the 'Warrant Service Officer' model and the 'Task Force Model.' The first two train officers to identify and put a detention retainer for unlawful residents booked into their jails. The 'Task Force Model' is a step up, allowing local law enforcement officers to act on behalf of ICE (in a limited capacity) during their normal day-to-day patrol.
For example, one of the duties listed under the 'Task Force Model's' mock agreement is 'The power and authority to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to hisright to be or remain in the United States… and to process for immigration violations those individuals who have been arrested for State or Federal criminal offenses.'
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According to ICE records, 36 Texas counties are already part of the program with six more in the process of implementing it. Of the 40 counties who would be required to participate (based on 2020 census data), only 10 currently do.
During the committee hearing, detractors of the program kept highlighting how expensive the program could be to enter, with Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne saying it would cost $10,000 for each officer in his program.
Have you been impacted by the heightened deportation efforts in Texas? Share your story:
SB 8 would partially take the financial burden off most counties by starting a grant program. Counties would be granted money proportionally based on their population and how many counties applied for the grant.
However, SB 8 would force counties with more than a million people — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis and Collin as of the 2020 census — to pay their own way.
'From (the Sheriff's Association of Texas) we're really worried about unfunded mandates,' Hawthorne, who also acts as the Legislative Chairman for the Sheriff's Association of Texas, said while testifying in support of the bill. 'We think that financial relief portion shouldn't be in a grant program, it should just be a part of the program. And it should cover all 254 counties that get into the program.'
Schwertner doubled down on the way his bill would fund the program.
'This would be an unfunded mandate for (counties over a million people) but what are they spending their money on already,' he said. 'Look at the line items, look at the budgets of the counties — Dallas County, Harris County — DEI officers, etc?'
In a statement, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez said, 'The Travis County Sheriff's Office fully complies with State laws, including SB 4. As SB 8 is discussed, it is my sincere hope that public safety is carefully considered. When people are afraid, they hide in the shadows. Victims don't report crime and witnesses don't come forward with information. Criminals win as they take advantage of the vulnerable among us. The impact of that reaches beyond immigration to our humanity. I want victims of crime to run to law enforcement, not away from us.'
According to Texas law, local law enforcement agencies already have to cooperate with ICE.
'We do not know of a Sheriff right now who does not cooperate with ICE,' Hawthorne said. 'Sheriffs are committed to the public safety side of things.'
Additionally, ICE data shows encounters at or near the southern border have dropped significantly in the first two months of 2025, coinciding with President Donald Trump's second term. In February 2025, ICE encountered 11,709 migrants at the southwest land border — less than 16 times fewer than in February 2024, when 189,913 encounters were documented.
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