A global team of betting whizzes hatched a scheme to take down the Texas Lottery. The plan was led by a London banker-turned-bookmaker and a mysterious professional gambler nicknamed ‘The Joker.’ The duo partnered with a Texas company and local retailers to print more than 99% of all the lottery tickets sold. And the jackpot was worth almost $100 million. The WSJ’s Brad Reagan explains how they pulled off the heist. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - How an Antiques Dealer Uncovered a Massive Museum Heist - Inside an iPhone Heist - How Investigators Cracked a $3.4 Billion Crypto Heist - Six Days of Chaos at MGM’s Casinos Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main story of 'The Joker' and the Texas Lottery?
Our colleague Brad Reagan grew up in Texas.
I live in London now, but I'm originally from Texas. My family's still in Texas. All my friends, or not all my friends, but a lot of my friends are in Texas.
Brad tracks the news in his home state. And recently, a story caught his eye. A heist story. Yeah, we love a heist story, especially here at the Journal podcast. We love it.
Heist stories are my favorite stories. That's exactly how we were looking at this from the beginning.
And this heist story involved a lottery, the Texas lottery. Specifically, a drawing that happened in the spring of 2023.
Get ready to play the Games of Texas for Saturday, April 22nd.
On the night of the drawing, they do it a little bit after 10 o'clock and it's kind of looks like almost like a cable access show.
Tonight's Lotto Texas jackpot is an estimated $95 million.
52.
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Chapter 2: Who are the key players in the lottery heist?
Jackpot draws in the Texas lottery are three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. And on Wednesday, April 19th, no one had the winning numbers. So the cash rolled over into the next drawing on Saturday. At that point, what was the jackpot?
The total prize was getting close to 90 million.
That's when the crew knew they needed to spring into action.
They wanted to do it as quickly as they could because there's obviously the risk that someone could win if they waited until the next draw. There was also the talk, we've heard that other big pro gambling outfits were circling and had seen this lottery. They're not the only ones out there who were kind of watching the jackpot creep higher and running the numbers.
And so I think they felt like there was a little bit of competition and if they don't strike now, someone else could get to it first.
It was go time. That's after the break. Hey, we're so excited for tonight.
Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home?
Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access.
Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council.
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Chapter 3: What strategy did they use to win the lottery?
The following story about the Texas lottery is based on interviews with people who were directly involved in the Texas operation or in contact with those who were. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed photos and video of the operation, emails and messages, and documentation of subsequent hearings in the Texas Senate.
In order to collect a prize from the Texas lottery, Marantelli's team needed to have a winning ticket that was printed.
They had to get from London to Texas and execute this plan to buy and print all of these lottery tickets before the drawing.
To get all those tickets printed in time, Marantelli and the Joker needed help. So Marantelli's team made a key connection on the ground in Texas with a startup called Lottery.com. It's a ticket purchasing company, one that was on the ropes.
Lottery.com was having a lot of problems in its own business. And Lottery.com executives saw this as a huge business opportunity. These Europeans were going to come in and spend $25 million buying tickets. They saw that as a business opportunity because they get 5% of the sales. There's a little bit of an air of desperation in some of the emails.
Lottery.com contacted the Texas Lottery Commission and requested access to official ticket printing terminals. And apparently, the commission said yes. Other lottery retailers pitched in as well.
They were able to get dozens of these ticket printing machines They set them up in four locations around the state. One was a former dentist's office. One was a warehouse. So these were not glamorous locations, but they brought in rolls and rolls of paper because they have to print all these tickets.
Based on the journal's calculations, all those terminals combined were spitting out about 100 tickets a second. So the question I feel like, after talking about this strategy of getting dozens of terminals, is, is that legal?
As best we can tell, it's 100% legal. Wow. These guys sought permission ahead of time, and they got approval, and they came in and did it.
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