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Lottery & Crypto · windfall money, on the record
Fort Wayne played the numbers long before Indiana sold them, in the tolerated gambling rooms the Crime section describes, and it has played the state's game since the first scratch-off tickets were sold on October 13, 1989. What the published record holds is specific and, by gambling standards, modest: no Fort Wayne ticket has ever won a Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot, and the city's biggest documented lottery stories are a $9.8 million Hoosier Lotto jackpot won by a Fort Wayne electrician in 2020, a $15.8 million jackpot ticket sold at a Fort Wayne gas station in 2021 to a truck driver who lived in Plainfield, and a man who won three major prizes in twelve years. The money that comes back is documented too, in pension funds and an excise-tax account rather than in ceremonies. Cryptocurrency, the newer windfall, reaches the city's record later and thinner: a Fort Wayne bank became the first in Indiana to sell Bitcoin in its app in 2021, and the rest of the documented encounter is criminal — two federal fraud cases prosecuted in Fort Wayne in which the stolen money left by cryptocurrency, and a police department warning residents, in so many words, that no agency will ever ask them to pay in Bitcoin.
The numbers, before the state sold them
Before 1989 — and July 1990
The illegal game: For most of the twentieth century the everyday lottery of American cities was the numbers game — policy, as the older name ran — a three-digit daily wager banked by whoever would hold the bets, run in city after…
The Hoosier Lottery arrives
November 8, 1988 — September 1994
The vote and the first ticket: Indiana had banned lotteries in its constitution since 1851. On November 8, 1988, the state's voters lifted the ban, approving the lottery referendum by 62 percent. The General Assembly ratified the…
Brad Miller's $9.8 million
February 22, 2020
The largest jackpot won by a Fort Wayne resident: In the record reached, the biggest lottery prize ever claimed by a Fort Wayne resident is the $9.8 million Hoosier Lotto jackpot of Saturday, February 22, 2020, claimed by Brad…
The $5.2 million claimed by a trust
October 16, 2019 — claimed January 10, 2020
The winner who stayed a description: Five months before Miller's win, a second Fort Wayne Hoosier Lotto jackpot had been hit. One ticket matched all six numbers in the drawing of October 16, 2019, for a $5.2 million jackpot. The…
The $15.8 million ticket sold on U.S. 24
August 14, 2021
The largest jackpot ticket sold in Fort Wayne: The biggest jackpot ever attached to a Fort Wayne cash register was not won by a Fort Wayne resident at all, and the record is careful about it. In the Hoosier Lotto drawing of…
The rest of the documented roll
2001 — 2026
The three-time winner: Roger Douglas of Fort Wayne holds the city's documented record for repetition. In November 2001 he won $250,000 on a Polar Express scratch-off. In 2006 he won $25,000 in a holiday raffle game. On November…
Where the money goes
1989 —
The three funds: After prizes and expenses, the Hoosier Lottery's surplus is divided by law among three destinations: the Indiana State Teachers' Retirement Fund and the Pension Relief Fund — the police and firefighters' pension…
Crypto: the frame, at true size
2021 — 2026
One paragraph of context, then the city: Cryptocurrency — Bitcoin first, from 2009 — spent a decade as a speculation conducted on exchanges and phones before it touched most American institutions at all, and Fort Wayne's…
STAR Bank sells Bitcoin
November 2021
The first bank in Indiana: In November 2021, STAR Financial Bank — headquartered in Fort Wayne, with $2.8 billion in assets and 36 banking centers — began offering its customers the ability to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin inside…
The Ossian shell companies
December 2020 — August 2022; sentenced 2026
Crypto as the exit: The first federal case in the Fort Wayne record in which cryptocurrency does real work is a laundering case. Janis A. Sexton, 63, of Ossian — Wells County, immediately south of Allen — pleaded guilty to…
The Fort Wayne company among the victims
2020 — April 2023; sentenced 2026
The same ramp, run from Texas: Khalid Ahamad, 55, of Little Elm, Texas, was sentenced in Fort Wayne — again by Chief Judge Brady — to 70 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, with restitution and a forfeiture…
The kiosks, and the warnings
2020s — May 2026
Where Fort Wayne actually meets crypto: For most residents the city's cryptocurrency infrastructure is not an app or an exchange; it is a kiosk in a store. Coinstar machines offering Bitcoin purchases through Coinme operate in…
