Bill that would give the Texas Lottery “a two-year lease on life” gets Senate approval

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The Texas Senate unanimously approved a bill that would abolish the Texas Lottery Commission, move the state’s game to a different agency and add several new restrictions on how lottery tickets can be purchased.

Senate Bill 3070 would move the Texas Lottery and the state’s charitable bingo operation to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and create new criminal offenses for people who buy lottery tickets online or en masse. The bill also mandates a review in two years by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission that will determine if the game should continue in any capacity.

“They have a two-year lease on life — we’ll see what happens under the new agency,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said as the bill was passed on Thursday.

SB 3070 provides one of only two paths forward for the lottery past September, as the lottery and its agency were already on the chopping block without the added action by lawmakers. The department is currently undergoing a routine review by the Sunset Commission, and requires legislation for it to continue. Senate Bill 2402 is the “sunset bill” that would maintain the lottery commission but it has an additional hurdle: legislators removed all of the lottery commission’s funding in its next budget proposal, and it would have to be placed back into the budget for the commission to continue operating.

Either bill must still pass out of a House committee by May 23 for the lower chamber to weigh in on the game’s fate. The House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee recently heard Senate Bill 28, which would ban couriers, and left it pending in committee.

For months, legislators have placed the lottery commission under scrutiny that has sparked investigations, resignations and calls to abolish the game completely. That criticism has largely stemmed from lawmakers concerned about a $95 million jackpot won in April 2023 by a single group that printed 99% of the 26 million possible ticket combinations in a 72-hour period, a process known as a “bulk purchase.” Under SB 3070, buying more than 100 tickets in a single purchase would be a class B misdemeanor.

To pull off the bulk purchase, the group partnered with four commission-licensed lottery retailers, who ordered dozens of ticket-printing lottery terminals that ran for days to print millions of tickets. That jackpot, as well as the proliferation of online ticket sellers known as lottery couriers, was only possible because the lottery commission willingly assisted them, Sen. Bob Hall said during his layout of the bill.

“The problems we’ve had are not a result of some very smart people from outside the government figuring out how to beat the system. What we had here was the criminal activities taking place came from within the commission itself,” Hall said, alleging the administrative rules the commission created and the subsequent bulk purchase were in violation of state law.

The Edgewood Republican filed SB 3070 on Monday, and the bill is an amalgamation of several other bills filed throughout the session. The bill would ban online ticket sales and courier services, making digital sales a class A misdemeanor. It also mandates tickets only be bought within licensed retail stores and create an advisory committee for the game.

Patrick lauded Hall as the bill was passed, crediting him for heading the legislative effort to rein in the lottery. Patrick has also been one of the loudest critics of the state game, posting two videos on social media during the session about the lottery and suggesting it may be abolished.

“Almost all the credit goes to you. You’ve been on this from the beginning,” Patrick said to Hall during floor discussion.

Hall also presented a bill earlier in the session that would abolish the lottery, and described SB 3070 as the “next best thing.” SB 2402 nor its House counterpart have been heard in committee, and the House bill missed a key deadline to move it out of committee.

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