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Attorney Randy Howry Represents Texas Lotto Winner Who Was Denied $83.5M Winnings

A Texas woman (who will remain anonymous at this time) won an $83.5 million jackpot in February 2025. Imagine her shock when the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) told her that she might never see a penny of those winnings due to a Texas Rangers investigation. To pursue her winnings, she came to Attorney Randy Howry of Howry Breen & Herman, LLP for legal counsel and representation.

Our client used Jackpocket, a smartphone app that allows people to buy lottery tickets and scratchers through a courier service, to purchase $20 worth of Texas Lotto tickets for the drawing on February 17th. To her amazement, she won the $83.5 million jackpot based on the numbers chosen on one of those few tickets. To her frustration, TLC told her soon after she presented the winning ticket that it couldn’t pay out the winnings because Governor Greg Abbott told the Texas Rangers to investigate her win on suspicion of fraud.

Courier services used to buy lottery tickets are currently under fire from Texas legislators who want to ban and criminalize such services. The legal changes began after a single group of buyers used an app similar to Jackpocket to purchase more than $25 million worth of Texas Lotto tickets in 2023, which essentially guaranteed that it would win the $95 million jackpot. Some lawmakers have pointed at the incident as a new and technology-driven form of money laundering.

However, as Attorney Howry and our client have pointed out, there is a quantifiable and massive difference between a group buying $25 million worth of lottery tickets compared to one woman buying $20 worth. Implying that she had attempted some form of money laundering or fraud with such a small purchase sounds absurd. Indeed, it takes away from the importance of the principle foundation of winning the lottery: luck. She got lucky by purchasing only a few lottery tickets but winning big.

Furthermore, the courier service that she used to purchase the lottery tickets for the February 17th drawing has not been completely outlawed by pending legislation, and it certainly wasn’t at the time she made the purchase. As Attorney Howry explained, “We played by all the rules, and we’re still playing by all the rules and we expect that [she] should be paid.”

Our legal team at Howry Breen & Herman, LLP is preparing to take the case to litigation if the Texas Lottery Commission does not give our client her winnings within a few days, as it was originally obligated to do. We have the strength, experience, resources, and knowledge needed to bring claims against any defendant, including government entities.

If you need the counsel or representation of our Austin trial attorneys for any reason, please call (512) 430-4844 or submit an online contact form to let us know how we can help.

Continued Reading

Check out these different news pieces and articles featuring Attorney Howry if you’d like to know more about this ongoing story:
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