Texas Lottery executive director resigns as lawmakers’ scrutiny mounts

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Ryan Mindell, the executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission, has resigned effective immediately, according to a news release from the agency on Monday.

Mindell took over as executive director of the commission after Gary Grief, his predecessor and the agency’s longest-serving executive director, resigned in 2024. Both former directors and the lottery itself have received a firestorm of criticism from lawmakers amid scrutiny over two central issues: the proliferation of third-party lottery ticket couriers and a $95 million jackpot in 2023 won by a single group buying out almost every possible ticket combination.

Robert Rivera, the lottery commission’s chair, said in a statement that Mindell submitted his resignation Monday. Rivera did not immediately make clear why Mindell resigned. The commission will start the process of finding a new executive director at its next meeting on April 29, the same day the agency is set to ban couriers from operating in the state. Clark Smith, a former commissioner with the agency, also resigned in late February.

Recent scrutiny of the agency from lawmakers reached a head after the House’s budget passed the chamber with zero funding for the lottery commission, a decision representatives doubled down on with a second nonbinding motion. The agency is also under two investigations by the Texas Rangers, a division of the Department of Public Safety, and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

Several bills in both legislative chambers also seek to whittle down or eliminate the agency, however none have received hearings since mid-March. Senate Bill 28, which criminalizes the use of couriers in Texas, passed through the Senate unanimously in late February. The bill was marked by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as one of his priority bills, but has yet to be heard in the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures committee where it was referred.

The lottery commission is also currently under review by the Sunset Commission. The commission, which reviews an agency before legislators choose to either pass a bill extending the agency or allow it to be abolished, criticized former director Grief in reports as comfortable operating in “gray areas” of the law to allow couriers to flourish in the state.

The report also stated, however, that evidence suggested Mindell had raised concerns about Grief’s decisions. In the wake of the “bulk purchase” of over 25 million tickets in April 2023, Mindell worked to implement policies restricting mass ticket printing, largely under the scrutiny of legislators. Mindell released a policy statement in February indicating the lottery commission now believed couriers violate current statutes, a switch from years of the agency’s claims it lacked the authority to do so.

“I think that when I became executive director, there were certainly things that I wanted to change about the tone, tenor and approach of the agency, and that's what I've been focused on,” Mindell said during a House Licensing Committee hearing in March.

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