AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission has resigned, the latest shake-up at the state's retail gambling enterprise amid multiple investigations into jackpots in 2023 and earlier this year totaling nearly $200 million, and calls from some lawmakers to shut it down.
The lottery announced Ryan Mindell's resignation on Monday without comment. A former deputy director and operations director at the lottery, Mindell had held the top job for only about a year following the abrupt resignation of his predecessor.
He leaves as the agency faces at least two investigations ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton into the integrity of the lottery prizes, and how the state handled the introduction of courier companies that buy and send tickets on behalf of customers online.
The companies and lottery officials have denied wrongdoing. But Texas state lawmakers are considering forcing several changes, ranging from a legal ban on sales through courier companies to shutting down the agency by taking away all of its funding.
The Texas lottery was established in 1991 and sends a portion of its annual revenue to public education. In 2024, that meant about $2 billion sent to the state's public school fund.
But two of the biggest jackpots in agency history prompted flares of scrutiny and criticism from media, lawmakers and state officials who question whether they were fairly won and if courier companies should be allowed.
First, a $95 million jackpot in 2023 was awarded when the winners bought nearly every possible number combination — more than 25 million of them. In February, an $83 million ticket was won with a ticket purchased at a courier store. The chain that operates the store has locations in six states.
A Houston Chronicle investigation initially detailed the buying efforts behind the 2023 jackpot, but it was the second one that finally grabbed the attention of prominent state lawmakers, as well as the governor and the state attorney general. An agency that typically garners little attention beyond the millions it awards in jackpots and scratch-off ticket games was suddenly under fire.
Abbott ordered the state's elite Texas Rangers law enforcement agency to open an investigation, and Paxton announced a probe by the state attorney general's office. Those remain ongoing.
“The governor expects the Texas Lottery Commission to work within the bounds of the law and to ensure the trust and integrity of the lottery regardless of who leads the agency," Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said Tuesday.
A Texas lottery spokesman declined further comment on Mindell’s resignation.
The Legislature, meanwhile, has held public hearings to scold lottery officials for allowing the use of courier companies to bypass state law that requires tickets to be purchased in person. Mindell had told state lawmakers in February that the agency had previously determined it did not have the authority to regulate courier companies, but said the agency would now move to ban them.
The Coalition of Texas Lottery Couriers accused Mindell of pushing the agency to “inaccurately and unfairly” allow the courier companies to “become the scapegoat for its own questionable activities.” The group insisted its members played no role in the 2023 jackpot scheme.
“Mindell’s departure provides an opportunity to reconsider the agency’s politically motivated decisions regarding lottery couriers and restart good faith collaboration between our companies and the TLC,” the coalition said in a statement.
State lawmakers are approaching the final month of their biennial session and have threatened action ranging from writing a courier ban into state law, or even more drastic measures such as shutting down the lottery altogether.
The state Senate has already passed a ban on courier sales, but the measure has yet to get a vote in the House. The House and Senate will soon negotiate a final version of the two-year state budget. The House version currently includes no money for the agency, which would effectively close it down.
But that effort is likely more of a message that lawmakers are serious about making changes than seriously thinking of closing down an agency that generates billions in sales and for public schools annually.
State law allows Texas jackpots to be claimed anonymously, and the April 2023 jackpot was collected two months later in the form of a one-time payment of $57.8 million to a company called Rook TX.
The payment for the February jackpot, however, is on hold pending the state investigations. An attorney for a woman who claims to hold the winning ticket has said it was legally purchased among a group of 10 she bought through the courier Jacketpocket.
FILE - Edith Patlan grabs printed tickets from a Texas Lottery sales terminal at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
FILE - A Texas Lottery sales terminal screen is shown at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
FILE - A Texas Lottery sales terminal shows the jackpot amounts up to win at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump toured an assembly line making Ford F-150 pickups on Tuesday, part of a Michigan trip meant to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing and counter fears about a weakening job market and still-rising prices hurting Americans' pocketbooks.
Trump visited a factory floor at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, where he viewed F-150s — the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. — at various stages of production. He caught a first-hand look at how gas and hybrid models were built, as well as the all-gas Raptor model, designed for off-road use.
The president chatted with assembly line workers clad in reflective vests — some of whom applauded his arrival — and spoke with the automaker's executive chairman, Bill Ford.
“All U.S. automakers are doing great,” Trump said, later adding that the “quality is unbelievable.”
Later, he headed to MotorCity Casino for a speech to members of the Detroit Economic Club, proclaiming “this is the easiest speech to make” because all he was doing is “spewing off what the hell we’ve done.”
“Right now I'm feeling pretty good,” Trump said.
But recent history suggests voters aren't so impressed. Tuesday's visit — his third trip to a swing state since last month to talk about his economic policies — follows a poor showing for Republicans in November’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere amid persistent concerns about kitchen table issues.
The White House pledged afterward that Trump would hit the road more frequently to talk directly to the public about what he is doing to ease their financial fears.
The president has previously suggested that jitters about affordability are a “hoax” unnecessarily stirred by Democrats. Still, though he’s imposed steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world, Trump has reduced some of them when it comes to making cars — including extending import levies on foreign-made auto parts until 2030.
He made a point on the factory floor of mentioning that his administration has imposed large tariffs on vehicles imported from China and said he hopes to prevail at the Supreme Court, which is weighing the legality of his sweeping tariff policies.
Trump also suggested that a major North American trade agreement he negotiated during his first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, was irrelevant and no longer necessary for the United States. The pact, known as the USMCA, is up for review this year.
Some good news for Trump arrived before he left Washington, when new data from December showed inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing. Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said, the same as in November.
“We have very low inflation,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before heading to Michigan, adding that “growth is going up. We have tremendous growth numbers.”
Meanwhile, Americans around the country remain concerned about inflation and the increasing cost of daily living.
Trump's attempt to shift the nation's attention to his efforts to spur the economy comes as his Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move that Powell says is a blatant endeavor to undermine the central bank's independence in setting interest rates. Critics of the move include former Fed chairs, economic officials and even some Republican lawmakers.
Asked on the White House lawn about the Powell investigation, the president lobbed his often-repeated criticisms of the Fed chair but didn't comment on the case.
Ford announced in December that it was scrapping plans to make an electric F-150, despite pouring billions of dollars into broader electrification, after the Trump administration slashed targets to have half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.
The Michigan stop follows economy-focused speeches Trump gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.
Like in Michigan, Trump also used a casino as a backdrop to talk about the economy in Pennsylvania. His speech there was held at Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono.
Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, after it swung Democratic and backed Joe Biden in 2020. He marked his first 100 days in office with a rally-style April speech outside Detroit, where he focused more on past campaign grudges than his administration's economic or policy plans.
During that visit nearly nine months ago, Trump also spoke at Selfridge Air National Guard Base and announced a new fighter jet mission, allaying fears that the base could close. It represented a win for Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — and the two even shared a hug.
This time, Democrats have panned the president's trip, singling out national Republicans' opposition to extending health care subsidies and recalling a moment in October 2024 when Trump, then also addressing the Detroit Economic Club, said that Democrats' retaining the White House would mean “our whole country will end up being like Detroit."
"You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said during a campaign stop back then.
Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said that “after spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit — a city he hates — to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer."
“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Hertel said in a statement.
Weissert reported from Washington.
Marine One, with President Donald Trump aboard, flies past the Jefferson Memorial, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2006, in Washington, after departing the White House, enroute to Joint Base Andrews and onto Detroit. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
President Donald Trump speaks during a tour of the Ford River Rogue complex, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One for a trip to Detroit, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump speaks to, from left Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, and Corey Williams, Ford River Rouge Plant Manager, during a tour of the Ford River Rogue complex, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - President Donald Trump shakes hands with Federal Reserve board member Jerome Powell after announcing him as his nominee for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
President Donald Trump points as he boards Air Force One for a trip to Detroit, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, reflected on door, leave to board Marine One, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
