Texas Lottery to pay $83.5m reward to February winner

• Kristen Moriarty, the winner of the February draw, will receive her money at long last
• The award will come after several months of fierce debates about whether a courier service was a legitimate way to play and win
• Moriarty previously said that she has done nothing wrong and that she spent $20 on the winning ticket

The Texas Lottery has announced that it will be paying $83.5m owed to a resident who won the draw on February 17, 2025, and was unable to claim their winnings until now.

Texas Lottery agrees to honor February win

Moving forward, however, the Texas Lottery and the plaintiff, one Kristen Moriarty, who filed a lawsuit in May, settled last week, which will see the owed amount honored. Moriarty is due to receive $45.8m before taxes with her win triggering a sequence of events that captured headlines and sparked fierce debate.

The issue with Moriarty's win was simple – she had bought her ticket using a lottery courier service, which had lawmakers in an uproar, not least because previously a European syndicate used such courier services to snatch up $95m jackpot, as well as millions more in secondary prizes.

This was back in 2023. At the time, the courier services were used to buy 99% of all available courier tickets.

The new win by the Texas native, though, quickly evoked the events of older days, with the Texas Lottery under fire for allowing practices that risked having the money end up with parties that have contributed nothing to the local economy.

Moriarty, though, failed to understand how any of it was her fault and why she should have her money denied when she didn’t do anything wrong.

Moriarty’s lawyer maintained a similar line of defense throughout the proceedings: "The Texas lottery wants to complain about what happened in 2023 and this bulk purchase of tickets, that's not my client. She played, just as the typical player plays. She bought $20 worth of lottery tickets, and she won, and now she should be paid."

Moriarty didn’t do anything wrong to be treated the way she was

"I'm sad, stressed, and angry that this has become a political thing. I've lost faith in our elected officials. And yeah, I really don't know what else to say that I can say out loud," Moriarty told The Texas Tribune in June.

Moriarty’s win has led to swift regulatory changes with lottery courier services leaving the state, and a cap imposed on how many tickets can be bought in individual transactions, putting a cap of 100 tickets.

While Moriarty will claim what is rightfully hers, the lottery won’t ever be the same. With couriers gone, the question is – will another story about a syndicate winning emerge in the coming months or years?

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