How ‘The Joker’ Rigged the Texas Lottery

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A global team of betting whizzes hatched a scheme to take down the Texas Lottery. The plan was led by a London banker-turned-bookmaker and a mysterious professional gambler nicknamed ‘The Joker.’ The duo partnered with a Texas company and local retailers to print more than 99% of all the lottery tickets sold. And the jackpot was worth almost $100 million. The WSJ’s Brad Reagan explains how they pulled off the heist. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - How an Antiques Dealer Uncovered a Massive Museum Heist - Inside an iPhone Heist - How Investigators Cracked a $3.4 Billion Crypto Heist - Six Days of Chaos at MGM’s Casinos Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Our colleague Brad Reagan grew up in Texas.
0:08.8	I live in London now, but I'm originally from Texas.
0:12.1	My family's still in Texas.
0:14.1	All my friends, or not all my friends, but a lot of my friends are in Texas.
0:18.3	Brad tracks the news in his home state.
0:20.4	And recently, a story caught his eye, a heist story. are in Texas. Brad tracks the news in his home state.
0:24.8	And recently, a story caught his eye, a heist story.
0:31.0	Yeah, we love a heist story, especially here at the journal podcast. We love it.
0:36.0	Heist stories are my favorite stories. That's exactly how we were looking at this from the beginning.
0:37.6	And this heist story involved a lottery, the Texas lottery, specifically a drawing that happened
0:44.9	in the spring of 2023. Get ready to play the Games of Texas for Saturday, April 22nd.
0:55.0	On the night of the drawing, they do it a little bit after 10 o'clock, and it's kind of,
1:01.0	looks like almost like a cable access show.
1:04.0	Tonight's Lotto Texas Jackpot is an estimated $95 million.
1:10.0	There's a woman and she's, like, standing next to, like,
1:13.4	this clear ball with basically ping pong balls
1:17.7	just bouncing around like a popcorn machine or something.
1:22.0	The first number is.
1:23.5	And then one of the balls will pop up, and so you can see that number.
1:27.3	52. And the drama kind of build, and so you can see that number. 52.
1:28.6	And the drama kind of build, and it's like, one number.
1:32.5	And the second number is, 30.
	...

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