A man from Fort Worth, Texas, who won a $7.5 million lottery prize in May 2023 alleges he was cheated out of a $100 million payout due to a mysterious European gambling syndicate manipulating the system. 

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 each. This enabled the syndicate to encompass every potential combination, ensuring it would at least secure a share of the $95 million jackpot and most secondary prizes too. 

Reed asserts in a new lawsuit submitted to the Travis County Court in Austin that the syndicate partook in an "unlawful money laundering and game-fixing operation." If this had not happened, the jackpot would have rolled over due to no other winners, resulting in Reed winning $102.5 million instead of $7.5 million. 

Colossus Bets, Couriers Charged 

The lawsuit identifies RookTX, a shell company incorporated in Delaware created to seize the prize, along with Colossus Bets, a parimutuel betting platform located in London that has been accused of potentially funding the venture. 

The complaint additionally identifies four lottery courier and retail firms — Lottery.com, Lottery Now, Inc., ALTX Management, LLC, and Qawi and Quddus, Inc. — that aided the syndicate's bulk-buy acquisition. 

Although the syndicate's actions did ruin the lottery for regular Texans that week, the rules don’t prohibit buying every combination of numbers. 

Maybe it’s due to the fact that there was no need 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 app. The company subsequently completes the order by obtaining tickets from an authorized physical lottery vendor, which are then scanned by the courier and returned to the customer. 

Since couriers handle tickets in large quantities, they utilize authorized retailers that are specifically equipped with numerous lottery terminals to manage bulk requests. The couriers might also possess such establishments themselves. 

Reed’s legal action asserts that the retailers “employed custom-built software, installed on smartphones, to create a system of fake QR codes that deceived the state-sanctioned Texas Lottery terminals into believing the codes were generated by the Texas Lottery Commission’s official mobile app.” 

Reed asserts that the defendants violated Texas law by "deliberately or consciously claiming a lottery prize or portion of a prize through fraud, deception, or misrepresentation." 

He is pursuing the “recovery of money obtained fraudulently and unlawfully” by the defendants.