Mystery South Dakota trust claims $78M Texas lotto jackpot
Blank Texas Lottery playing cards are seen at a Houston convenience store. A player won a $78 million Lotto Texas jackpot with a ticket purchased at Gordon's Bait & Tackle in Brownsville in November 2025. The winning ticket was claimed just six days before it was set to expire.
A South Dakota-based trust company has claimed one of the largest Texas Lottery jackpots in history just days before the winning ticket was set to expire. But the winner’s identity will remain a secret forever, thanks to South Dakota’s strong trust privacy laws.
Jua-Ri Trust Agreement Trident Trust Company Inc., of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, claimed the $78 million-winning Lotto Texas ticket that was purchased at a Brownsville bait shop last November, according to Texas Lottery officials. The ticket purchaser opted for a lump sum payment, meaning they will take home $43,757,223.10 before taxes. Jua-Ri Trust claimed the ticket on Friday, May 8, just six days before the ticket was set to expire. Officials said that the win has now become the sixth-highest jackpot in Lotto Texas history.
The winning ticket was purchased at Gordon’s Bait & Tackle, 7066 Padre Island Hwy, Brownsville, TX 78521, ahead of the November 15, 2025, drawing. The small convenience store and gas station is located along Texas 48, the industrial and rural highway that connects Brownsville with the Rio Grande Valley’s coastal cities of Port Isabel and, beyond, South Padre Island. The bait shop has been family-run since 1972, according to ABC affiliate KRGV. Gordon’s Bait & Tackle will not receive a cash award for selling the winning ticket, the store’s owners told the television station.
The winning ticket matched all six numbers — 7, 17, 23, 28, 39 and 48. Lotto Texas is played by picking six numbers from 1 to 54 for drawings held at 10:12 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. But who ultimately takes home the lump-sum payment will remain a mystery. That’s because South Dakota has some of the strongest privacy laws in the country when it comes to trusts.
“In South Dakota, however, trust information that comes out in court is automatically sealed from the public… Furthermore, that seal is perpetual so that trust information never becomes public,” Goosman Law Firm, a Sioux Falls-based law firm, said in a blog post about the state’s trust privacy laws.
“South Dakota is the only state with an automatic and perpetual seal on trust information, making it the best trust privacy jurisdiction in the country,” the firm said.
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