The Scheme That Broke the Texas Lottery
June 25, 2025 at 01:21AMMeet Dawn Nettles, a woman who is “seventy-four, with cropped copper hair and the bearing of a gently exasperated elementary-school teacher.” That’s how Rachel Monroe introduces us to the main character of this New Yorker piece, in which she reports on a $95 million Texas Lotto win that got away, and how Nettles acts as a tireless watchdog advocating for fair, transparent gaming at the Lone Star State’s Lottery Commission.
There are nearly twenty-six million possible combinations for Lotto Texas; Powerball, in comparison, has nearly three hundred million. A player, or a group of players, with the financial and logistical resources can effectively guarantee a win—and, if the prize pool is big enough, a hefty profit. This idea struck Nettles as immensely unfair. That week, she bought more tickets than she had in years. “I kept saying, ‘God, come on, let me hold the winning ticket so these people don’t come out ahead,’ ” she said.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/06/24/the-scheme-that-broke-the-texas-lottery/
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