In 2023, the Texas Legislature instructed the Texas Lottery Commission to stop online lottery ticket sales.
Not only has it refused to enforce that directive, but it is also allowing a company that administers an exclusive lottery in China to sell Texas Lottery tickets to Texans and out-of-state gamblers.
Jackpot.com has been selling lottery tickets online in Texas since 2023, after the Lottery Commission changed its rules in 2020, opening the door for online lottery ticket sales. Texas has forbidden the sale of tickets online since the lottery’s founding.
According to Jackpot’s website, Lotto China is a lottery that’s “exclusive to Jackpot.com.” The Chinese government “allowing” an app to operate in China should raise red flags. The country, famous for its spying, has used gambling apps—specifically sports gambling apps—to venture into crime, such as financial scams, human trafficking, torture, kidnapping, and murder.
In July, the Philippines banned widespread Chinese-run gambling outfits.
Jackpot’s ties to China aren’t its only foreign entanglement.
Jackpot.com, which announced in January 2023 that it was operating in Texas despite precedent forbidding the sale of tickets online, is owned and operated by Lottomatrix, a Malta-based company.
Malta, an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tunisia, Africa, will be familiar to followers of the Texas lottery.
In 2023, an international gambling syndicate rigged a Texas lottery jackpot, winning a $95 million jackpot. The Lottery Commission has been criticized by the playing public and lawmakers alike for facilitating the win.
The syndicate was, at least in part, based in Malta.
Foreign syndicates aren’t the only potential buyers. Watchdogs have raised the alarm that underage buyers could be using apps to gamble, while others point out the money-laundering potential that lotteries, like other forms of gambling, afford to cartels.
During its last meeting, the Lottery Commission was put on notice that it has been materially misleading lawmakers by claiming the activities of companies like Jackpot.com could not have been contemplated when it modified its rules in 2020.
However, in 1990, the lottery dealt with an out-of-state jackpot being won over the phone, and rules were established to forestall similar wins after the incident.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott issued four executive orders between November 18 and 21, 2024, to protect Texas from the Chinese Communist Party.
According to lottery historian Jonathan Cohen, lottery expansion in Texas and other states is driven entirely by special interests that profit from the lottery.
The Texas Lottery Commission is currently undergoing the sunset review process. Every 12 years, lawmakers review state agencies and decide whether to continue, reform, or abolish them.
Lawmakers on the Sunset Advisory Commission have called for the agency to be reformed, but this is only a recommendation. The legislature can still opt to abolish the rogue agency.
Before finalizing its recommendation, the commission nixed a staff recommendation that would have divorced the Lottery Commission from the lottery itself should the legislature opt not to renew the agency.
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