Inside the scheme to buy 25 million tickets and win the Texas lottery – and how it’s affected another winner’s $83M payout
What’s the only way to guarantee winning the lottery?
Everyone knows — you buy every number combination imaginable, which is exactly what one audacious international group of gamblers did, throwing the Texas state lottery into disarray in the process.
The group calculated that if it bought 25.8 million $1 tickets of almost every potential six-number combination between 1 and 54, it would make a profit when the jackpot was higher. The theory was put to the test in April 2023 when the Lotto Texas jackpot rolled over to $95 million.
The scheme sounds so much like a heist movie that it could be a parody, down to the man allegedly behind it being known as “the Joker.” Addressing his assembled crack team of accomplices, he would say, of course: “And the best part? … It’s all perfectly legal.”
Technically, it was. Nothing in the Texas state lottery code says a person can’t buy every number combination, although since the win — which resulted in a lump-sum profit of $57.8 million before taxes — much is now under review.
Perhaps most surprisingly, details of the mass buying scheme didn’t surface until after February this year when a woman who claims she won an $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot fair and square was told she couldn’t collect as she bought the ticket through an app.
Days after the Feb. 17 draw for the $83.5 million prize, the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) put the payout on hold and announced lottery courier services such as Jackpocket — which the woman had used — would no longer be allowed in the state, effective immediately.
Here’s how the first controversial win may end up canceling the other.
The $95 million jackpot scheme was hatched by one-time London-based banker Bernard Marantelli, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The idea was bankrolled by Zeljko Ranogajec, a shadowy figure who operates out of Tasmania, Australia, and — among many aliases — is known to some as “the Joker,” per the newspaper.
The team recruited an online ticket seller, Lottery.com, to work with it, according to the WSJ. The TLC even delivered “dozens” of terminals to print the tickets at warehouses in Texas, where the team spent the three days between the unclaimed April 19 draw and the next buying 99.3% of all the number combos. (Popular choices like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 were discounted as it would mean splitting the prize with too many others.)
A bunch of associates and some of their kids worked around the clock to churn out 100 tickets or more per second, according to reports.
In Texas, lottery claimants are allowed to stay anonymous, and the winners of the $95 million payout were initially only known via a locally registered company called Rook TX.
A New Jersey lawyer who represents the limited partnership told The Post: “All applicable laws, rules and regulations were followed.”
However, since the scheme was revealed, state Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has described the crew’s win as “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas.”
Former Texas Lottery Director Ryan Mindell — who announced his resignation on April 21 amid scrutiny from state officials — disagreed.
He said “the integrity of the game was not compromised” in the 2023 drawing and that agency policies had since been changed to make similar mass purchases more difficult, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Those rule changes have also affected February’s currently anonymous winner of the $83.5 million jackpot, who had purchased $20 worth of tickets through the Jackpocket app.
The winner argues her case is different, given she paid $20 to play rather than the millions spent by Marantelli’s group.
“I’m being treated as the bad guy,” said the woman, who spoke to Nexstar on the condition of anonymity. “Sometimes there are reasons to investigate things, but I don’t think mine is one of them.”
Dawn Nettles, a longtime lottery watchdog who publishes a website tracking winners and jackpots, said she “feels sorry” for the unidentified winner but the woman “has an illegal ticket” because she used an online service to send a courier to collect it for her from a Winners Corner store in Austin.
“It doesn’t matter that the courier apps weren’t officially banned in Texas when she bought her ticket, because she purchased it over the internet and paid an added fee — and those things are against the law,” she told The Post.
Texas regulations do not allow the sale of lottery tickets by mail, phone or internet and the TLC outlines on its website that buyers must purchase tickets from a licensed retailer within the state.
However, things are complicated. Nettles admits previous winners who have used services similar to Jackpocket were paid out, although she claims technically they shouldn’t have been. Nettles is also part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit against Rook TX, the TLC and others over the paying out of the $95 million win.
Both wins are now under legal scrutiny. Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the elite Texas Rangers law enforcement agency to investigate what happened in each case, a probe which is ongoing.
State lotteries are targeted by international groups such as the one behind the $95 million win because multi-state lotteries like Powerball have too many combinations to make it worth trying to beat.
That’s also one of the reasons states are tightening their rules to ensure winners are going to spend their money where it is won.
“If you win $50 million in the lottery, you are probably going to buy a new car, new home, buy things for friends — all that is going to assist [the state’s] economy. But not if the money is leaving the state,” Nettles said.
This, at least, goes in favor of February’s Texas-based winner. And regardless, whether it was her or a Jackpocket employee, somebody bought the winning ticket.
