Austin, Texas – The executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission has stepped down from the latest reforms at the state’s retail gambling enterprises amid multiple 2023 Jackpot investigations.
The lottery announced Ryan Mindel’s resignation on Monday without comment.
Mindel, former assistant director and operational director of lottery tickets, had only been at the top for about a year after the sudden resignation of his predecessor.
He faces at least two investigations the agency has ordered lottery prize integrity by Gov. Greg Abbott and state attorney general Ken Paxton, and how the state handled the introduction of courier companies that buy and send tickets online on behalf of customers.
Businesses and lottery officials have denied fraud.
But Texas lawmakers are considering enforcing several changes, from a legal ban on sales through delivery companies to snatching all the money into the agency shutdown.
Jackpot
The Texas Lottery was founded in 1991 and sends a portion of its annual revenue to public education. In 2024, approximately $2 billion was sent to the state public school fund.
But two of the biggest jackpots in agency history have spurred scrutiny and criticism from the media, lawmakers and state officials, questioning whether they won fairly and whether courier companies should be allowed.
First, a $95 million jackpot was awarded in 2023, when the winner purchased almost every possible number of combinations.
In February, a $83 million ticket was won for tickets purchased from a courier store. The chain that operates stores has six state locations.
reaction
The Houston Chronicle investigation first detailed the purchasing efforts behind the 2023 Jackpot, but it was ultimately the second that attracted the attention of prominent state legislators, governors and state attorney generals.
An agency that normally attracted little attention, surpassing millions of IT awards, fired suddenly.
Abbott ordered the state’s elite Texas Rangers law enforcement to begin an investigation, while Paxton announced an investigation by the state’s Attorney General’s Office. They remain ongoing.
“The governor hopes that the Texas lottery committee will work within the law and ensure the trust and integrity of the lottery regardless of who leads the agency,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahalleris said Tuesday.
A Texas lottery spokesman declined to comment further on Mindel’s resignation.
Meanwhile, the legislature held a hearing for an old lottery official to allow the use of courier companies so that it could bypass state laws requiring tickets to be purchased directly.
Mindel told state lawmakers in February that the agency had previously determined that it had no authority to regulate delivery companies, but the agency would now move to ban them.
The Texas Lottery Courier Courier accused Mindel of pushing the agency “inaccurate and unfair.” The group claimed that members did not play a role in the 2023 Jackpot scheme.
“Mindel’s departure provides an opportunity to reconsider politically motivated decisions regarding lottery couriers and resume honest cooperation between us and TLC,” the coalition said in a statement.
What’s coming next
State lawmakers are approaching the last month of their biennial session, threatening actions ranging from writing a courier ban in state law or more dramatic measures, such as shutting down lottery tickets entirely.
The state Senate has already passed a ban on the sale of courier services, but the measure has not yet been voted in the House.
The House and Senate will soon negotiate a final version of the two-year state budget. The house version is currently not including agency money and is effectively closed.
But the effort is likely to be something like a message that lawmakers are more serious about making changes than they are seriously considering closing agents that generate billions of dollars of sales each year.
Texas Hold’em
State law allows Texas jackpots to be billed anonymously, and the April 2023 jackpot was collected in the form of a one-off payment of $57.8 million, two months later, to a company called Rook TX.
However, the state’s investigation is pending for jackpot payments in February. The woman’s lawyer who claims to hold a victory ticket says it was legally purchased among a group of 10 people who purchased it at Courier Jacketpocket.
