A woman who won an $83.5 million Lotto Texas jackpot earlier this year – only to be prevented from collecting her winnings due to fierce political crosscurrents rocking the Texas Lottery Commission — appears to be finally getting paid.
Kristen Moriarty, a Houston-area mother of two, was the only person to correctly pick the six numbers drawn in the game. But she had the bad timing to win her life-changing prize at the exact moment when legislative fury was building against the Texas Lottery Commission.
As reported in a Houston Chronicle series, two years earlier the state agency had assisted a group of international gamblers engineer a guaranteed jackpot win in an April 2023 Lotto game. The winner, calling itself Rook TX, spent $25 million to purchase virtually every possible number combination, collecting a $58 million one-time payment…