- A summons in the criminal case against the abolished Texas Lottery Commission went to the agency that now runs the lottery.
- The commission and former executive director Gary Grief each face a first-degree felony charge of abuse of official capacity.
- The charge traces to an April 2023 Lotto Texas drawing whose $95 million top prize went to a bulk-buying syndicate.
- Grief and the defunct commission are next due in Travis County’s 167th District Court on Aug. 14.
The Texas Lottery Commission was abolished in 2025 but remains a felony defendant, and the licensing agency that replaced it inherited the case.
AUSTIN – A summons in the criminal case against the Texas Lottery Commission was served on Courtney Arbour, executive director of the state agency that inherited the lottery when the commission was abolished, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation said July 7. The commission and its former executive director, Gary Grief, each stand charged with abuse of official capacity, a first-degree felony, over a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot paid in 2023.
The Summons Follows The Lottery, Not The Director
Abolishing the Texas Lottery Commission in 2025 did not extinguish its criminal exposure. The case moved with the lottery.
“The litigation concerns matters that predate the transfer of the Texas Lottery to TDLR,” the department said in a statement posted July 7. “Because the Texas Lottery Commission was abolished and its duties were transferred to TDLR, Executive Director Courtney Arbour was served with a summons in her official capacity as the head of the agency now that it administers the Texas Lottery.”
The department said it would not comment further while the matter is before the courts.
Arbour did not run the lottery when the drawing at issue took place. TDLR is a licensing agency, and the state lottery is one of dozens of programs it oversees. The summons reached her because the indicted entity no longer exists as a standalone body, and the successor agency is the party a court can serve.
What Senate Bill 3070 Moved To TDLR
Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 3070 on June 20, 2025. The measure, authored by Sen. Bob Hall, abolished the Texas Lottery Commission and transferred administration of the state lottery and the licensing and regulation of charitable bingo to the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation. It took effect on signing, its changes applied beginning Sept. 1, 2025, and the commission’s rules moved out of Part 9 of Title 16 of the Texas Administrative Code and into TDLR’s Part 4 on Oct. 1, 2025.
The same bill banned lottery ticket courier companies and restricted purchases to in-person sales at licensed retailers, which ended Texas Lottery online ticket buying. It also capped sales to one individual at 100 tickets per transaction, required the executive director to maintain an office of security, ordered the state auditor to audit the lottery program every year, and set the state lottery to expire Sept. 1, 2029 unless the Legislature continues it.
A Drawing, An Indictment, Then A Second One
The charge traces to the Lotto Texas drawing of April 22, 2023. The game carries roughly 26 million number combinations. A syndicate fronted by a gambler based overseas printed tickets on dozens of terminals at four Texas locations, took in nearly the whole field, and collected the $95 million top prize.
A Travis County grand jury charged Grief on April 14, Assistant District Attorney Rob Drummond moved to dismiss that case three days later citing prosecutorial discretion, and the May 14 indictment that had Gary Grief reindicted in the $95 million Texas Lotto case named the commission alongside him.
Charging the entity is what put a summons in front of the agency that now administers the games. According to the indictment, the commission fraudulently misused government property and services through actions “authorized, requested, performed or recklessly tolerated” by Grief and two other commission officials. Grief retired at the end of February 2024.
Next Appearance Set For Aug. 14
Neither the indictment nor the transfer alters what is legal to wager on in the state. State-regulated play among Texas gambling sites is still limited to the lottery, pari-mutuel horse racing and charitable bingo, with tribal venues operating under federal law and no commercial casino or state-licensed sportsbook.
Grief and the commission were set for a first appearance in the 167th District Court in Austin at 9 a.m. on June 26. Grief did not appear that day, and the first setting now falls on Aug. 14, 2026.