Texas Lottery Winner Sues Over Alleged $95M Jackpot ‘Rigged’ by European Syndicate
A man from Fort Worth, Texas, who won a $7.5 million lottery prize in May 2023, asserts he was deprived of a $100 million windfall due to manipulation by a mysterious European gambling syndicate.
Jerry Reed struck it rich the week following the syndicate's purchase of 25.8 million tickets for the April 22, 2023 drawing at a dollar apiece. This enabled the syndicate to encompass all potential combinations, ensuring at least a shared portion of the $95 million jackpot and the majority of secondary prizes too.
Reed alleges in a recent lawsuit submitted to the Travis County Court in Austin that the group participated in an “illicit money laundering and game-fixing operation.” If this had not happened, the jackpot would have carried over due to the absence of other winners, resulting in Reed winning $102.5 million rather than $7.5 million.
Colossus Wagers, Couriers Charged
The lawsuit identifies RookTX, a shell company incorporated in Delaware created to claim the prize, along with Colossus Bets, a parimutuel betting platform based in London that is alleged to have financed the operation.
The lawsuit additionally lists four lottery courier and retail firms — Lottery.com, Lottery Now, Inc., ALTX Management, LLC, and Qawi and Quddus, Inc. — that assisted the syndicate in making the bulk-buy acquisition.
Although the syndicate’s actions did ruin the lottery for average Texans that week, there are no rules prohibiting the purchase of all possible combinations of numbers.
Maybe that's due to the fact that there was no necessity before. Prior to the emergence of lottery couriers, it would have been unfeasible.
'Fake QR Codes’
Couriers enable players to buy their tickets via an application. The business subsequently completes the order by obtaining tickets via an authorized land-based lottery vendor, which are then scanned by the courier and returned to the customer.
Due to the high volume of tickets couriers manage, they utilize authorized retailers specifically outfitted with several lottery terminals to handle large orders. The couriers might also possess these outlets themselves.
Reed's legal action alleges that the retailers "employed specially-designed software, installed on smartphones, to create a scheme of fake QR codes that deceived the state-sanctioned Texas Lottery terminals into accepting the codes as though they had been produced by the Texas Lottery Commission's official mobile app."
Reed asserts that the defendants violated Texas law by “willfully or knowingly asserting a lottery prize or a portion of a prize through fraud, deception, or misrepresentation.”
He is pursuing "the return of money that was fraudulently and unlawfully acquired" by the defendants.
