Bill to abolish Texas Lottery Commission heads to governor’s desk
The Texas Senate has approved the proposal following controversy over big jackpot wins.
US.- The Texas Senate has approved Senate Bill 3070, which would abolish the Texas Lottery Commission (TLC) following controversy over jackpot wins. The legislation now heads to governor Greg Abbott’s desk. He has already said that he will sign off on the legislation.
Introduced by senator Bob Hall, the bill will transfer authority over lottery operations to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Ticket sales will be limited to 100 per transaction in person during regular store hours. There had been calls for Texas Lotto to be abolished completely, but a decision on this has been put back to August 2027 pending a review.
The move is intended to address concerns around accountability and transparency. The Texas Lottery Commission banned lottery ticket couriers on April 29 amid controversy over a $83m jackpot win. In a previous controversy involving a courier in 2023, one person won a $95m jackpot after buying 26m $1 tickets.
In a video on his Twitter account, lieutenant governor Dan Patrick previously said: “You remember back in February when I went into this place called Winners Corners, when someone won an $83m jackpot in a courier service, and they wouldn’t let me in the back room to even take a look at what was going on? Well, that began this saga of really discovering the alleged corruption in the Lottery Commission.”
He added: “I promised you that if we couldn’t guarantee the lottery commission was an operation that you could trust, we would eliminate it, and that’s what we did. We passed Senate Bill 3070 by Bob Hall, who was one of the first to really uncover the corruption at the Lottery Commission, and the Lottery Commission will be no more. We’re going to give the extension to the game for two years to the TDLR. They will oversee it with a brand new leadership team and new guardrails.”
