(Texas Scorecard) – A woman who won an $83.5 million jackpot earlier this year has sued the Texas Lottery’s top official after waiting months to receive her payout.
The anonymous woman, known as “Jane Doe” in her petition filed on May 19, is seeking to finally get the money from Sergio Rey, the acting deputy executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission.
The woman specifically alleges in her lawsuit that she has not received the money because she purchased the $20 winning ticket through the ticket reseller service Jackpocket, which is a subsidiary of DraftKings.
Ticket reseller services, also known as courier services, allow customers to play the lottery online through an intermediary who buys the ticket at a brick-and-mortar store on their behalf.
The practice is novel, coming about decades after the Texas Lottery was first established in the 1990s. Lottery commissioners have also recently taken action to stop the practice at the behest of lawmakers. Previously, some officials had facilitated it.
In addition to their online services, some ticket resellers also own brick-and-mortar retail stores that their services utilize. Jackpocket is one such example, operating the store Winners Corner in North Austin.
Earlier this year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick revealed in an exposé of the February jackpot win that the anonymous woman’s ticket was bought at that location. Patrick had suggested in the video that the jackpot win could have been connected to the practice of “bulk purchasing.”
Despite those concerns, the woman’s petition claims that commissioners had “determined that Plaintiff was the lawful bearer of the winning ticket in the Lotto Texas drawing that occurred on February 17, 2025, and determined that Plaintiff was therefore the ‘prize winner’ under Texas Government Code § 466.4001.”
The anonymous woman told the Austin American-Statesman in a March interview that she had already “gone through frustration and being sad and stressed.” Now, the woman said, she was “just angry.”
Her attorney, Randy Howry of Howry Breen & Herman, LLP, stated last month that his client could not collect the winnings because of Gov. Greg Abbott’s ordered investigation into the Texas Lottery.
“At the time she made the lottery ticket purchase, the app was completely legal to use; it still is, but now it is under official scrutiny,” read the attorney’s news release.
Rey and the commissioners were radio silent on the status of the payout to the woman and her legal counsel, according to the court filing.
However, a spokesperson for the Texas Lottery Commission told People magazine on Wednesday that “the claim is being reviewed under the Commission’s claim validation requirements and is the subject of external investigation.”
The woman is seeking judgment from the court declaring her the winner of the $83.5 million jackpot, as well as the earnings from the jackpot win itself and the cost of attorney’s fees.
Abbott first initiated an investigation into the Texas Lottery in February after Patrick released a video detailing potential conflicts of interest between retail stores, such as Winners Corner, and their ticket reseller operators.
The governor also ordered a probe into a separate incident, initially reported by the Houston Chronicle, of potential child labor surrounding another questionable jackpot win.
After Texas Lottery commissioners took part in several fiery hearings before lawmakers, who grilled them on the two incidents and other fraud allegations, Abbott’s investigation was expanded to cover the entire lottery.
Since then, Ryan Mindell has resigned as executive director, with Sergio Rey taking over. Ticket resellers have also filed lawsuits against the commission, alleging it abruptly changed its stance on the legality of their business.
The Texas Senate has also unanimously approved two measures that would, respectively, explicitly ban ticket resellers and abolish the Texas Lottery Commission, placing the lottery under the control of another state agency.