AUSTIN (Nexstar) — “It is a hard line, couriers have to go,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Wednesday. The statement comes on the heels of an $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot, the fifth-highest in the game’s history, which was won through the app Jackpocket, a DraftKings subsidiary.
“(Courier services) violate the spirit of the law,” Patrick said. “I don’t care what kind of changes they want to make, it does not solve the issue. The lottery was established was to have cash tickets so we don’t have kids buying tickets… not for an app to be a digital courier, buying thousands and thousands or millions of tickets.”
Jackpocket owns and operates an Austin-based retail store Winners Corner, a storefront primarily consisting of board games. Despite being located in an area with little foot traffic, they generated the most lottery ticket sales in 2023 by a longshot, with the next closest store selling less than a quarter of what Winners Corner sold.
According to instructions from the Texas Lottery Commission, to be a licensed lottery retailer in Texas, “you cannot be in the sole business of selling Texas Lottery tickets.” But to process all those app orders for tickets, Jackpocket needs a physical space to buy tickets as ordering lottery tickets over the phone is illegal in Texas. Winners Corner solves this problem, at least in the eyes of the Texas Lottery Commission.
“Winners Corner is a licensed lottery retailer,” Jackpocket CEO Peter Sullivan said. “We are not in the sole business of selling lottery tickets… we are open to the public, so someone can go in and order an official lottery ticket directly in the store. And then we work with Jackpocket, so Jackpocket receives the order from the customer and then that Jackpocket employee goes into the retailer and purchases the ticket — a physical ticket — from that retailer.”
Upon hearing the news of the $83.5 million win, Patrick decided he needed to check out the retailer for himself, posting his visit on X.
Patrick questioned the cashier at the front of the store, and then called Winners Corner’s legal team. Afterward, Patrick said he went into the backroom but wasn’t allowed to film, saying he was disturbed by the operation he saw.
“Our count was somewhere around 30 terminals just run, run, running, running — spitting out tickets,” Patrick said. “You have a little retail shop that’s violating the spirit of the law or maybe the law totally, about how they’re selling other items, and they won’t let me go behind the wall and take a photograph of what they’re doing. If it’s all on the up and up, what are they afraid of showing the public?”
“When you think of a courier, what do you think of? You think of GrubHub or something, I don’t know. You order food and they bring it to you,” Patrick said. “Most people think courier service(s) bring them tickets — no, it’s an app.”
Sullivan argues that their process is more along the lines of a public service.
“Individual customers that are both age-verified and located inside the state of Texas can place an order for a lottery game, one of the many Texas Lottery games they already know and love. Jackpocket receives that request and then we go to a licensed lottery retailer and buy the physical ticket on their behalf. We then scan the front and back of that ticket and then provide the image back to the customer and link it to their identity. We will either credit their account if it falls under $600 of winnings, if it’s over $600 we’ll get in touch with that customer, give them the physical ticket, which they then go and redeem through the lottery,” Sullivan said. “Through this we’ve been able to create millions and millions of additional dollars towards the great beneficiary that the lottery provides for.”
According to state law, “The [Texas Lottery] commission is subject to review under Chapter 325 [Texas Sunset Act]. Unless continued in existence as provided by that chapter, the commission is abolished and this chapter, Chapter 466 of this code, and Chapter 2001, Occupations Code, expire September 1, 2025.” This means unless the legislature takes action this session to extend the Texas Lottery Commission, called a Sunset bill, the Lottery Commission will cease to exist as of Sept. 1.
Typically, this is a formality. But in this case, Patrick seems intent on using this power to make sure couriers are officially banned by the legislature.
“We will pass [legislation this session] to ban couriers. Number two, if they don’t make changes and they don’t instill confidence for the legislature and the people of Texas in the lottery, we will not pass the Sunset bill in the Senate, and the lottery will be out of existence,” Patrick said. “[Couriers being banned] is a hard line for me, and I think the Senate… I haven’t talked to all the Senators but the bill [last session to ban couriers] passed 29-2.”
Bills and a joint resolution filed on Wednesday propose banning mobile lottery games and eliminating the Texas Lottery entirely.
Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, authored the bill on making mobile lottery games a criminal offense, which would eliminate courier services. These services allow players to place orders for lottery tickets online to then be fulfilled by a licensed lottery retailer in Texas. At a hearing earlier this month, senators questioned the director of the Texas Lottery Commission about potential money laundering within the agency. The couriers were criticized for allegedly facilitating underage and out-of-state play in the Texas Lottery through insecure verification measures.
Additionally, they were accused of buying out an abnormal amount of six-digit lottery number combinations that would increase the likelihood for those vendors to hold the winning set. At the hearing, senators expressed concerns about how a courier service helped a buying group purchase over 99% of available combinations. However, the Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers, consisting of Lotto.com, Jackpocket and Jackpot.com doesn’t want to be affiliated with that scandal, saying they want to work with the legislature to make sure it can never happen again.
“It’s been extremely frustrating because I think there’s been a lot of confusion,” Sullivan said. “Lottery courier services like ourselves that are regulated in other states do not allow for bulk purchasing. It’s just not possible on our app.”
They say they support legislation to ban bulk purchases, similar to a bill filed by Sen. Brian Hughes, R-Mineola, to prohibit a person from purchasing all possible winning tickets in a lottery drawing.
Shaheen also authored the joint resolution that would abolish the Texas Lottery. A joint resolution is an amendment to the Texas constitution. It requires the approval of both legislative chambers and then is offered up to Texans for a majority vote. The Texas Lottery primarily benefits public schools and Texas veterans through the Foundation School Fund and the Texas Veterans Commission Fund. The Texas Lottery Commission reported that around $1.9 billion was allocated to the Foundation School Fund in 2024. According to Sen. Bob Hall, R-Rockwall, this amount doesn’t contribute to much in the grand scheme of things.
“I asked in the committee hearing yesterday ‘How much money is the lottery bringing in?’ and what he said amounts to about what we spend in three days,” said Hall. “Three calendar days. Three out of 365. So I don’t think in the Texas budget it’s a monumental problem to replace that funding.”
Hall and his co-authors Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, and Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, introduced a Senate bill mirroring Shaheen’s proposal to criminalize mobile lottery games.
“The bottom line is, if people are gonna have confidence in the lottery, we have to be sure that no one has an advantage,” Patrick said. “And again, we’re not suggesting anything illegal, but this is not the way the lottery was designed to operate.”
The Texas Lottery Commission is conducting internal investigations to assess the scope of lawmaker’s concerns.
House plan includes new funds for public schools and education savings accounts
State Representative Brad Buckley, R-Salado, filed his version of the education savings account (ESA) program along with a finance bill that would add billions of new dollars into public schools, but opponents to the bill package said it does not do enough to help public education.
Buckley’s version of the ESA would provide each eligible student with “85% of the estimated statewide average amount of state and local funding per student in average daily attendance for the applicable school year,” according to HB 3, the ESA bill. His office estimated that would be a little over $10,000 a year per student.
Students with a disability would receive more money. The amount of money would depend on how much money the student’s public school district would have been entitled to if they enrolled in public school. The amount cannot exceed $30,000 a year.
Home school students can also benefit from the program but can not receive more than $2,000 per year.
The bill also prioritizes which students will receive the program funding if there are too many applicants in one year. The prioritization looks like this:
| Priority Ranking | Requirements |
| 1 | Students with disabilities whose family income is at or below 500% of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) |
| 2 | Students whose family income is at or below 200% of the FPL. |
| 3 | Students whose family income is above 200% and below 500% of the FPL. |
| 4 | Every other student whose family income is above 500% of the FPL |
“Educating our children today is complicated and sometimes a public school environment just doesn’t meet the needs of children and parents deserve the right to send their kids to the environment that they feel best suits their needs,” Buckley explained why he filed an ESA bill.
School choice is a top priority for Gov. Greg Abbott. He has traveled around the state to advocate for education savings accounts this session. At the Texas Policy Summit in Austin on Wednesday, the governor said House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R – Lubbock, is on his side and supports school choice.
Past attempts to pass school choice legislation have failed in the House of Representatives. After the filing on Thursday, a group of House Democrats spoke against the legislation to a group of reporters in the Capitol.
“I’m all for even more options,” State Rep. James Talarico, D – Austin, a former school teacher, said. “But what I’m not for is giving away our precious taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools that can discriminate against our students.”
Rep. Buckley said the bill would be debated by his colleagues in the House Committee on Public Education, of which he is the chair, and he said he is confident it will pass the House.
“I’ve been hearing that since 2023. Voucher proponents have a habit of declaring victory prematurely,” Talarico said.
Speaker Burrows applauded the bill package filed by his Republican colleague.
“I believe the Texas House is fully prepared to fund public education while acknowledging one size does not fit all—one without the other would leave Texas short. This session, the House will lead from the front by passing a series of sweeping reforms to improve our education system for Texas students, teachers, and parents,” Burrows said in a statement.
Senate Bill 2, the Senate’s version of the ESA program filed by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R – Conroe, would give $10,000 a year to every eligible student in the program attending an accredited private school in Texas, $11,500 for students with disabilities, and $2,000 for home school children.
Eighty percent of SB 2 also prioritizes low-income families and students with disabilities. In that version of the bill, low income is considered at 500% of the FPL. In that version of the program, all students in that range of income would have the same chance to be a part of the program.
The other bill that has people talking at the Capitol on Thursday is HB 2, Buckley’s school finance bill. His office said it will provide close to $8 billion in new funding for public schools. Here’s how that breaks down, according to his office:
- $3.2 billion to increase the basic allotment by $220 per student
- $1.1 billion to boost small/midsize-district adjustment
- $1.8 billion increase in special education funding
- $1.5 billion to expand Pre-K, Fine Arts, HS Career Advising
- $750 million to increase Teacher Incentive Allotment (program to help pay teachers six-figure salaries)
- $450 million investment in teacher training and preparation
The biggest item to look at on that list is the increase in the basic allotment. The basic allotment is the minimum funding schools receive every year per student. The last time it increased was in 2019, but it has remained at $6,160 since then. Rep. Buckley’s bill would increase that to $6,280.
The allotment can be used by schools to pay for operational costs or teacher pay raises, Buckley explained. “It provides more flexibility so local school districts can respond to the needs in the areas and the markets that they’re in,” Buckley said.
Talarico and other Democrats argue the increase is not enough when accounting for inflation. His office estimates the allotment would need to rise by $1,400 to have the same buying power it did in 2019, the last time it was raised.
“This bill is inadequate, it’s insufficient, and when you pair it with the voucher bill, it’s going to take far more money out of our schools than could ever be put in this session,” Talarico said.
In response to that argument, Buckley said his bill was designed to make investments that “not only just approve funding for schools but also improve the outcomes for our kids.”
Buckley also filed HB 4, which would repeal the STAAR Test and replace it with a new state assessment that would be administered in portions throughout the school year, according to a news release from the Speaker’s office. The reason for the spaced-out testing is to decrease testing anxiety for students and to allow teachers to get a snapshot of student progress.
Burrows’ release also said HB 4 will restore the state’s A-F accountability system, which gives schools a rating on performance.
The bills will be heard in the House Committee on Public Education. If it passes out of committee, it will then be debated by the entire House.
At least 54 died since 2018 waiting for state hospital opening, senator calls for more tracking
Walter Macias still struggles to retell the unfortunate arc of his brother Fernando’s life. What began as a normal childhood developed into mental illness in early adulthood, which led to a downward spiral of schizophrenia and other disorders that culminated, in 2018, with being found unresponsive at the age of 61 in a San Antonio jail cell.
As Walter recounts it, multiple facets of the criminal justice system failed his brother. He was involved in a daylong standoff with county and state police at the family home he shared with his mother. The situation ended in a shootout with police, and when the smoke cleared, their mother Amelia was dead. That disaster likely could have been averted, Walter said, but what came next, when Fernando languished in jail, was an injustice he believes should never have happened.
Fernando was charged with multiple counts of attempted capital murder of a police officer. He was found incompetent to stand trial, meaning his mental illness was so severe he couldn’t understand or participate in his own defense. His case was paused until he could be sent to a state hospital for competency restoration, which is treatment to stabilize a person mentally to allow them to move forward with their case.
But there was a problem. The state’s mental hospitals were full. Fernando was put on a waitlist for a state hospital bed, but he died before getting there.
Back in mid-2018, there were roughly 400 people ahead of Fernando on the state’s maximum security state hospital waitlist, waiting an average of nearly 200 days, according to state data.
Fast forward six years, and a legislatively-prompted report by the Texas State Auditor’s Office shows Fernando’s situation was far from an isolated incident.
Dozens of other mentally incompetent men and women have died awaiting placement in a state hospital, and thousands more have been left for months in jail waiting for a state hospital bed. Despite years of work, billions spent on state hospital renovations, and the creation of alternative programs for competency restoration, Texas still has a significant state hospital backlog.
The total waitlist reached a record level in October 2022, with over 2,550 people waiting.
HHSC tracks the number of people waiting for a state hospital bed. There are two waitlists — one for maximum security beds and another for non-maximum security. There are fewer maximum-security beds available, making wait times for those beds longer, according to HHSC data from the Joint Committee on Access and Forensic Services. Source: HHSC (KXAN Interactive/David Barer)
KXAN has investigated the state hospital waitlist and backlog for years. In 2021, KXAN’s investigation Mental Competency Consequences found the Texas Health and Human Services Commission did not track when people were dying while waiting for a state hospital bed, and no other state agency maintained a list of individuals who died in jail.
HHSC acknowledged in January that it still does not track that information, but it does remove people from the waitlist when given a notification by “by a court or another stakeholder that the individual was deceased.”
Auditors discovered 54 incompetent people – like Fernando – died while they were on the state hospital waitlist between September 2018 and December 2023.
Of those deaths, 30 occurred in jails and were reported to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards – 20 of that number were from natural causes, eight were from unknown or undetermined causes, one was an accident, and another was a homicide, the audit found.
An additional 24 others “weren’t necessarily in custody at the time of death” because some were eligible for bond and could have been back in the community.
Fernando’s death was categorized as natural, according to his custodial death report. Walter questions how well that description portrays his brother’s death.
While Fernando had serious medical issues including renal failure, he was rejecting his medication, dialysis treatment and had lost over 100 pounds while in custody, according to Walter and court records.
“A guy that’s mentally ill, is he … really in the right frame of mind to care for his own health and to refuse something like that?” Walter said. “He might have wanted to live.”
It is not just people in Fernando’s situation who are affected by the waitlist. It impacts both sides of the criminal justice equation, with victims of crimes left waiting for justice as well.
“The old adage is, ‘justice delayed is justice denied,’ both for the individual who is accused, but also for any victims,” State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, told KXAN in an interview at her Capitol office. “This wait time is not only an injustice to the individual who has a serious psychiatric diagnosis and is in need of medical care, but it’s also a disservice … in the criminal justice context.”
As long as a person with pending charges remains on the waitlist, or in the state hospital getting treatment, their case remains at a standstill. A recent Austin shooting spree underscores the problem.
Victims and family members have already waited over year for justice following the December 2023 rampage that left six dead and more injured across Travis and Bexar counties. Shane James, the suspect charged with multiple counts of capital murder, awaits trial. When that might happen isn’t clear. He was declared incompetent to stand trial in November, when there were over 500 people ahead of him waiting an average of 245 days for a maximum security state hospital bed, according to HHSC records.
But just getting to the state hospital doesn’t mean a person will be restored to competence. The murder of Clara Oda Torriente-Capote, a 36-year-old mother, provides a prime example. In 1999, she was stabbed and killed in the parking lot of a South Austin gas station. James McMeans, a 30-year-old man who was homeless and diagnosed with schizophrenia, was soon charged with her murder.
McMeans was sent to the state hospital in 2000, and he is still there 25 years later, according to court records. During that time, the courts have extended his commitments repeatedly, records show.
While the number of people on the waitlist ballooned in recent years, HHSC officials have worked to reverse the trend.
“Due to our efforts and the support from state leadership, we have seen a decrease in the number of individuals on the maximum security and non-maximum-security waitlists, as well as a reduction in the overall time people are on the waitlist,” an HHSC spokesperson told KXAN by email.
After the onset of the pandemic, when the waitlist and wait times skyrocketed to record levels, HHSC officials acknowledged they had removed state hospital beds from use due to low staffing.
In 2023, lawmakers set out $1.5 billion for seven state hospital construction projects that are part of renovations begun in 2017 that will add 618 hospital-owned beds, including 384 maximum security ones, according to HHSC.
HHSC has also received funding for 166 inpatient psychiatric competency restoration beds it wants to have online by the end of fiscal year 2025. To improve staffing, the agency has offered employment incentives, raised base salaries and provided flexible shifts. Those efforts have led to an increase in state hospital staff to 7,550 in January, compared to 5,900 two years prior, HHSC said.
All those efforts have pushed the waitlist curve down. Nevertheless, there were over 1,700 people waiting for a state hospital bed in December. That’s far too many, according to Eckhardt, who filed Senate Bill 719, directing HHSC to conduct an extensive study of state hospital beds. The study would dig into the availability of beds for inpatient services; the makeup of the population using state hospital beds including intellectually disabled people; projected needs in the coming years; anticipated resources and more. The bill was referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Feb. 7.
Eckhardt said the state should be tracking deaths, too.
Tracking deaths and other impacts of the state hospital backlog would expose the need for investment. The “price tag on the state would be hefty,” she said. Letting localities – like counties, hospital districts and cities – absorb the cost has been easier for the state than footing the bill.
“I think the state isn’t tracking it because they’re afraid to know,” she said.
The study in Eckhardt’s bill would provide even more information on top of the November state audit, which unearthed an array of troubling issues.
The state audit focused on Texas’ competency restoration system from September 2018 to December 2023, when over 15,600 people were placed on the waitlist.
Extended wait times have led 168 individuals on the waitlist to be “timed out” of jail, auditors found. That means those people were waiting for a state hospital bed so long they reached the maximum possible sentence for the charge they faced and had to be released despite not being convicted or treated.
Auditors also discovered the process for handling competency cases varies widely from county to county and can affect how quickly cases are resolved. For example, Harris, Tarrant and Travis counties have a dedicated docket for competency-related cases, unlike most other counties.
And, auditors uncovered a raft of administrative and paperwork issues originating in counties.
When a person is found incompetent to stand trial and a court orders them to get competency restoration in a state hospital, the court is supposed to send the commitment order to HHSC immediately. Once HHSC gets the commitment order, the person can be placed on the waitlist. Auditors found that isn’t always happening. Less than half of commitment orders were sent to HHSC the same day as required, and 4% were submitted over a month late. In one case, auditors discovered an individual’s commitment order wasn’t reported for over two years to HHSC for placement on the waitlist.
Separately, state law requires district and county clerks to report information on certain individuals found incompetent to stand trial to the Texas Department of Safety within 30 days. DPS passes the information to the FBI for federal firearm background checks. Auditors found clerks’ offices across the state failed 830 times to make those reports, which could make it possible for one of those people to potentially purchase a firearm without getting flagged on a background check, according to the audit.
Auditors also found that local programs meant to divert individuals from the waitlist are underutilized.
Texas has 254 counties; 43 of them have outpatient services, 20 counties have jail-based programs, and 14 counties have both.
Just 6% of those waiting, or about 950 people, were removed from the list after their competency was restored through an outpatient or jail-based restoration program, according to the audit.
If the state can study the system closely – outcomes, deaths, costs and future needs – it can get a better handle on what needs to be done, Eckhardt said.
“I think regular tracking is absolutely essential,” Eckhardt told KXAN. “If we want to wrap our arms around the escalating costs at the local level, if we’re going to blame the locals for coming up with solutions that cost property tax dollars, maybe we should take a look at ourselves first to see what kind of investments we’re making at the state level.”
The state audit’s finding of at least 54 people dying while waiting for a state hospital bed since fall 2018 further illustrates the need for a study, she said.
“It’s really tragic that people are dying while waiting for care,” Eckhardt added. “Now, again, we don’t know the causal relationship between their death and their psychiatric circumstances, because we’re not studying it.”
Senators consider cryptocurrency investment for Texas
Lawmakers discussed creating a new reserve dedicated to investing in Bitcoin on Tuesday.
Texas Senator Charles Schwertner authored Senate Bill 21, which would create the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The bill was discussed in the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce.
“Crypto currency is what people believe is. In this case, Bitcoin is finite and decentralized and something that [people] don’t have to worry about governments printing more and more money,” Schwertner said.
Schwertner emphasized that creating such a reserve would help protect against inflation.
“People are really worried about federal overspending that’s been going on decades and the inflation that engenders,” Schwertner said.
Kendall Garrison, CEO of Amplify Credit Union, felt that the government investing in cryptocurrency is risky.
“[Crypto] can be very, very volatile. It can go up very quickly, and it can turn around and go down just as quickly,” Garrison said. “Switching from very safe investments that the state of Texas has today—like government bonds, index funds, hedge fund investments—to cryptocurrency is really increasing the risk in that portfolio.”
That sentiment was also echoed by Cesare Fracassi, the director of the Blockchain Initiative at the McCombs School of Business.
“It has a high correlation with the market. Meaning, when the market does well, bitcoin does well. When the market does poorly, bitcoin does poorly,” Fracassi said.
When asked if it was a good idea to instill a Bitcoin reserve in Texas, Fracassi expressed concerns about a government entity investing on behalf of taxpayer dollars.
“I don’t want the government to take my money and decide how to invest my money. I want to invest my own money,” Fracassi said.
Schwertner, on the other hand, stressed that such an investment isn’t as risky as it could seem.
“All financial assets have volatility. Pieces of land have volatility. Dollar-denominated assets stocks have volatility, and true cryptocurrencies have volatility,” Schwertner said. “Bitcoin in particular is the largest cryptocurrency, the one that trades the largest volume, and I think it has the least amount of overall volatility.
Garrison suggested if the bill passes, there needs to be proper regulations.
“What I would suggest is they have a very strong, very well thought out investment policy that has a stop loss built into it,” Garrison said. “If it decreases more than x percent, then you exit those investments, and on the other side of the coin, if it increases more than x percent, you harvest some of the profits.”
If the reserve is created, it will be overseen by the Texas Comptroller. There also would be a five-person advisory committee—including the Comptroller—that would advise on the management of this reserve.
Texas lawmakers left this bill pending in committee.
