A Texas-sized battle over the way forward for the Texas State Lottery took a significant flip final week when the Texas Senate handed a invoice that dissolves the Texas Lottery Fee completely. Beneath the phrases of SB 3070, management of the Texas Lottery will transfer from the, now defunct, Texas Lottery Fee to the Division. The invoice additionally bans using lottery courier companies within the state.
Over the previous few years, the Lone Star State has skilled a stream of lottery-related issues, principally associated to courier companies that permit out-of-state gamers to take part within the lottery remotely. The invoice took specific inspiration from a 2023 scheme launched by out-of-state gamers that concerned a bunch utilizing a courier service to buy 26,000,000 tickets. That transfer netted the group a whopping $95 million win.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick defined the invoice in feedback reported on by the Dallas Categorical saying, “We’ve abolished the Lottery Fee. We’re transferring operations of the state lottery to the Division of Licensing and Regulation,” mentioned Patrick. “It bans lottery couriers. All lottery ticket gross sales have to be in individual. It limits ticket gross sales to 100 tickets per transaction. It provides prison penalties. It establishes a two-year trial interval—and we are able to ban it in two years if the TDLR doesn’t function it as we instruct them to.”
Patrick could be approved as a State Lottery Inspector beneath the invoice. “It authorizes the governor, myself, and the lawyer basic, and the speaker as inspectors. Now I’ll be a lottery inspector, and I can drop in and go wherever I need to be certain that every part is on the up and up,” he added.
SB 130 now heads to the Texas State Legislature for remaining approval.
