A group is being accused of rigging a lotto win in the Texas Lottery, causing a man to lose out on a much bigger prize. He claimed that because they won the jackpot the month before, his winnings were significantly diminished.
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Jerry B. Reed of Hood County, Texas won a respectable $7.5 million in April of this year. However, he believes that because the alleged fraudsters took $95 million the month before, his winnings were much lower. He is claiming that the previous month's win was rigged.
An entity known as Rook TX managed to purchase the winning lotto ticket in March. However, this was only possible due to the sheer number of tickets they had bought. Rook TX is made up of a group of wealthy investors. These include Lottery.com, Lottery Now, Inc., ALTX Management, LLC, and Qawi and Quddus, Inc.
Together, these organizations purchased a total of 2.58 million tickets. This came to a total of $25 million but also almost guaranteed a winning lotto ticket. Unsurprisingly, they won the jackpot and took home an enormous $95 million in total.
This is being hailed as a money laundering scam, and Reed is seeking "recovery of funds fraudulently and illegally obtained."
Unfair Odds
Of course, playing like this, it's almost impossible to lose. Reed is claiming that if this conglomerate hadn't bought almost every ticket the month before, his jackpot would have been significantly bigger. He is also claiming that there was almost no way they could have legally purchased that many tickets.
His lawsuit claims that there is no way they could have printed over two and half million tickets in the 72 hours they purchased them. He alleges that they "used custom-designed software, loaded onto smartphones, to generate a system of counterfeit QR codes that tricked the state-approved Texas Lottery terminals into recognizing the codes as if they had been generated by the Texas Lottery Commission's authorized mobile app."
Reed is out to get his due lotto winnings. He is hoping to prove that their fraudulent ticket buying the month before has duped him out of around $95 million. He is not alone in the lawsuit either. The same company, known as Rook TX, is being investigated for money laundering. They believe the scheme they are running with the Texas Lotto is a money laundering scheme.
