(Texas Scorecard) – On February 20, prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a sweeping indictment against Russian national Vadim Komissarov.
He was charged with orchestrating a complex securities fraud scheme that inflated revenues at Lottery.com, deceived regulators and investors, and ultimately led to millions of dollars in losses.
But Komissarov, or Vlad as he is referred to throughout the indictment, was not working alone. The company he used to allegedly defraud investors was based in Texas and was enticed to come here by the former executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, Gary Grief.
Grief’s recruitment of Lottery.com and other lottery ticket resellers came shortly after his failed attempt to legalize fantasy sports betting via the lottery without legislative approval.
The indictment, returned by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York, also accuses Komissarov of obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with a subsequent federal investigation.
Four days after Vlad’s indictment was unsealed, Gov. Greg Abbott launched a very tightly scoped investigation into two Texas lottery jackpot wins, the first public indication that the growing scandal surrounding the Texas Lottery had registered with the governor.
According to the indictment, Komissarov was the chief executive of Trident Acquisitions Corp. (TDAC), a special purpose acquisition company that merged in late 2021 with AutoLotto, Inc. AutoLotto did business as Lottery.com.
Facing a looming deadline to complete a merger or return investor funds, Komissarov allegedly conspired with two Lottery.com executives to artificially inflate the company’s revenues through a series of sham transactions.
The government alleges that Komissarov and his co-conspirators faked data sales to report revenue the company never received, used a shell company to purchase ownership stakes in two Mexican gaming companies for $1 million, then sold those stakes to AutoLotto for $10 million plus hundreds of thousands of shares—creating the appearance of legitimate business activity and further inflating revenue.
Also alleged is a $30 million round-trip transaction with another data company to make it appear that Lottery.com had earned $30 million in revenue. That loan and its use were concealed from auditors and the company’s board.
Prosecutors say these transactions were designed to mislead TDAC shareholders and the market about the financial health and prospects of Lottery.com, thereby securing approval for the merger and boosting the company’s stock price.
After the merger, Komissarov allegedly sold nearly 300,000 shares of Lottery.com for more than $600,000, capitalizing on the inflated share price before the fraud was uncovered.
Within months, in 2022, new leadership at Lottery.com disclosed significant accounting errors and insufficient cash reserves. The company’s share price plummeted from $1.15 to $0.29, inflicting heavy losses on investors.
As federal regulators began investigating, the indictment alleges Komissarov attempted to coordinate false narratives with his co-conspirators, urging them to conceal his role in the fraudulent transactions.
He used encrypted messaging apps and advised others to delete communications to stymie the investigation. When questioned under oath by the Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2024, Komissarov allegedly lied about his involvement and communications with other executives, leading to a perjury charge.
Importantly for Texans, two co-conspirators working with Komissarov cooperated with investigators. These co-conspirators are former executives of Lottery.com who have worked closely with the state lottery and many key individuals, including former executive directors Gary Grief and Ryan Mindell.
Multiple individuals familiar with Grief and his methods said that the savvy bureaucrat would not have taken on the risk of expanding gambling in the state without protecting himself in the process.
Meaning, he would have cleared the maneuver, and he would have kept proof. Multiple well-placed sources and public comments by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) have stated that Grief is missing.
Grief’s noticeable absence and the circumstances surrounding Ryan Mindell’s strained tenure at the helm of the Texas Lottery, if they aren’t already, may be of interest to federal and state investigators alike.
While it’s possible for investigations to take different paths and arrive at separate conclusions, close observers of the debacle that is the Texas Lottery, its enablers, and the constellation of bad actors in its orbit will be looking closely at differences between the multiple ongoing efforts.
Lt. Gov. Patrick called for an expansive investigation of the Texas Lottery, one that, according to sources, is taking place. Attorney General Ken Paxton is also conducting an investigation.