Lottery Commission, former director accused of defrauding Texans
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Days after the Senate Finance Committee grilled the Texas Lottery Commission about how they handled a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot from April 2023, new allegations surfaced about former Texas Lottery Commissioner Gary Grief’s role.
In April 2024, a Houston Chronicle investigation revealed a group of investors had essentially gamed a $95 million jackpot, spending nearly $26 million to buy almost every possible number combination. In January, a report from the state’s Sunset Advisory Commission said “Grief seemed quite comfortable operating in the gray areas of the State Lottery Act when the agency’s authority was not crystal clear or the Legislature remained silent on emerging issues.”
On Wednesday, a Houston-based lawyer made stronger allegations.
“My client believes that this criminal conspiracy started in 2017 when Gary Grief traveled to California to lobby the founders of Lottery.com to relocate their business to Austin,” attorney Manfred Sternberg told the committee. “From that moment on until Mr. Grief’s sudden retirement in early 2024, the Lottery Commission and Lottery.com became a combined single criminal entity.”
To supplement his claims, Sternberg sent a 22-page document alleging Grief and Lottery.com worked together not only during the jackpot incident but for years. They allege the partnership started in 2017 when Grief allegedly traveled with another Texas Lottery Commission employee to San Francisco to entice Lottery.com co-founders Tony DiMatteo and Matthew Clemenson to move the company to Austin.
The documents accused Grief of bypassing the normal legislative process to change lottery rules to allow cell phones to place lottery bets, opening up the potential for courier services like Lottery.com. They also allege his changes to allow 24-hour printing of tickets and anonymous claims for winners were designed to help Lottery.com. Also attached to the allegations was a 2019 letter addressed from Grief to DiMatteo telling him Texas Powerball tickets could be purchased by “foreign jurisdictions” as long as the sales were legal where the player was located.
Sternberg also alleges Grief helped another Lottery.com co-founder, Ryan Dickinson, to print “hundreds of thousands of illegal lottery tickets in Texas using these fraudulently issued Texas Lottery terminals, printing these tickets mostly at night. These illegal tickets were being sold to customers in locations outside of the State of Texas who were purchasing the tickets on the Lottery.com app, not knowing their ticket would actually be printed in a different state than they were located.”
The statement alleges Dickinson personally redeemed over 142 lottery tickets over three years, all sold by a Waco-based retailer, which Sternberg claims was owned by the house counsel for Lottery.com. At one point, Dickinson redeemed $50,000 Powerball tickets in two consecutive drawings, the complaint alleges. State data shows Ryan Dickinson won back-to-back Powerball drawings in late 2020 and early 2021.
Dickinson was terminated for cause by Lottery.com in June of 2022, and Clemenson resigned shortly thereafter, according to a 2022 U.S. Securities Exchange Commission filing. The company then allegedly laid off all of its employees, and DiMatteo resigned days later. However, according to Sterling, their involvement with Grief didn’t stop when they left the company.
The $95 Million Jackpot
Sternberg claims Grief helped Lottery.com print hundreds of thousands of tickets for the April 2023 drawing on credit, not paying the cash value to the Texas Lottery at the time. In order to get all the tickets printed, Sternberg said, they used a Malta-based company to create QR codes to be scanned into Texas Lottery terminals, which would then print out almost every possible combination of tickets. They also say eyewitnesses said DiMatteo and Dickinson were among those scanning these QR codes, although neither were still with the company when these events took place.
The complaint also alleges the terminals that were delivered violated the Texas Lottery’s own rules on where terminals are allowed. Texas Lottery terminals are supposed to be available at brick-and-mortar stores open to the public. Sternberg’s allegations claim neither of those things were true, and the terminals were set up in a location only selling tickets that was not open to the public.
Grief retired in early 2024, just months before the Houston Chronicle’s report on the incident was published.
What’s next?
Some senators are calling for the Texas Rangers or the Attorney General’s Office to open an investigation.
“(Grief) was just able to retire and from what we read it seems like he was very much involved in enabling money laundering,” State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D – Houston, said. “That’s a crime and it should be investigated and he should suffer the consequences.”
Dawn Nettles, the founder of a lottery watchdog website LottoReport.com, filed a class-action lawsuit against Rook TX (the company that claimed the $95 million jackpot), Grief, Lottery.com and IGT Solutions (which delivers the Texas Lottery terminals). Sternberg is the attorney representing Nettles.
The lawsuit is asking a court to determine if the alleged acts by the defendants in the case, “including rigged lottery results and unlawful ticket sales,” violate any Texas laws. The plaintiffs are also asking a court to decide if “defendants’ representations regarding fair play and legitimate lottery operations constitute false, misleading, and deceptive practices.”
In a statement, the Texas Gaming Commission said they are actively investigating the allegations.
Also in a statement, a representative from Lottery.com said “Lottery.com completely cleaned house in late 2022 replacing its entire board of directors and executive management team. No current officer of the Company was in an executive role during the time any of the alleged events took place, which were raised during a meeting for the Texas Senate Committee on Finance on February 12, 2025. The Company has and continues to fully cooperate with all federal, state and local authorities with respect to any investigations into the Company’s past business practices. The Company’s current management remains dedicated to acting with integrity and in full compliance with laws governing responsible gaming to create value for all its shareholders.”
Our attempts to reach Grief, Dickinson and the Texas Attorney General’s Office were unsuccessful. Governor Greg Abbott’s office also did not respond to a request for comment, but confirmed they received Sternberg’s letter. A spokesperson said to direct questions about the allegations to the Lottery Commission as they are actively investigating the claims.
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