A LOTTERY winner filed a lawsuit against the lottery after he claimed he was robbed of millions.
Jerry B. Reed alleged that his winnings were diminished by $95 million due to an elaborate scheme in the lottery.
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Reed won $7.5 million in the Lotto Texas less than one month after a $95 million winning ticket was cashed by Rook TX in April 2023, local NBC affiliate KXAN reported.
That April win by Rook TX is being investigated for being an alleged money laundering scheme, which Reed claimed drastically reduced his winnings.
The lawsuit claimed the “illegal money laundering and game-rigging scheme” was the result of the three founders of lottery.com and Colossal Bets.
The three men allegedly got the help of foreign and domestic bettors to purchase every possible lottery number combination.
A London-based company was reportedly hired to help with the scheme along with four lottery retailers in Texas.
In total, the company, along with its European companions, bought 25.8 million Lotto Texas tickets.
“This operation stands as one of the most significant lottery rigging cases in U.S. history,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff wrote that Colossal Bets formed Rook TX “as vehicles to hide the identity of the company and individuals who received the proceeds of the illegal game-rigging scheme.”
For the scheme to work, the men and their associates had 72 hours to purchase millions of lottery combinations.
The men used “custom-designed software, loaded onto smartphones, to generate a system of counterfeit QR codes that tricked the state-approved Texas Lottery terminals into recognizing the codes as if they had been generated by the Texas Lottery Commission’s authorized mobile app,” the lawsuit said.
The software allowed them to print tickets rapidly over a short period.
When the winning number was announced on April 22, 2023, one of the men’s numbers was chosen for the $95 million jackpot.
In addition to the main prize, the men had 288 tickets that matched five of the winning numbers, 16,925 tickets that matched four of the winning numbers, and 377,360 tickets that matched three of the winning numbers, according to the Star Telegram.
The additional prizes added a $2.4 million bonus to their money, which the men opted to receive as a one-time lump sum payment of $57,804,374.
The lawsuit reported that the men won a total of $60,264,030.
The scheme extends far beyond Reed’s lawsuit.
Top lottery winners in the US
Millions dream of winning the lottery and finding fame and fortune. These are the biggest winners in US lottery history.
- Edwin Castro – $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 8, 2022, in California.
- Theodorus Struyck – $1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, in California.
- Unknown winner – $1.602 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, in Florida.
- Marvin and Mae Acosta from Los Angeles, California, John and Lisa Robinson from Munford, Tennessee, and Maureen Smith and David Kaltschmidt from Melbourne Beach, Florida – $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016.
- Unknown winner – $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, from South Carolina.
- Unknown winner – he sued the mother of his child to keep his identity hidden – $1.348 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, from Maine.
- Unknown winner – $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, from Illinois.
- Cheng and Duanpen Saephan, and Laiza Liem Chao – $1.326 billion, Powerball, April 7, 2024, from Oregon.
- Rosemary Casarotti – $1.22 billion, Mega Millions, December 27 2024, from California
- Unknown winner – $1.13 billion, Mega Millions, March 26, from New Jersey
Texas Lottery officials claim they did not know about the money-laundering operation; however, investigators believe otherwise.
Lawmakers are threatening to shut the lottery down as a whole.
“We can not renew the Lottery Commission if we can’t trust it,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a news conference.
“If we can’t look at people in the eye and say to Texas, ‘You can trust the Lottery, it’s not corrupt, and you’re going to get a fair deal and the games are fair.’ If we can’t do that then we can’t extend it.”