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What is Blue Wizard?
The mystery surrounding who won the $1.04 billion Powerball jackpot drawn on Aug. 12, 2026, has been solved—sort of. The Illinois Lottery announced that the winner came forward this week to claim the prize but chose to remain anonymous.
The big Powerball winner took advantage of Section 7.2 of the Illinois Lottery Law, which governs disclosure rules regarding winners’ identities.
Under Section 7.2, a winner of a prize of $250,000 or more can request to keep their name and municipality of residence confidential while completing their Illinois Lottery Winner Claim Form.
What is Blue Wizard?
Citing U.S. code, the gaming company is pushing for an inter parties review while requesting that the board find the 18 claims in question “unpatentable.”
Patent squabbles, including those pertaining to geolocation services, aren’t unheard of in the online gaming space. How things shake out in the Cantor Fitzgerald/DraftKings spat remains to be seen, but it’s possible the deck is stacked against the gaming company.
The Commerce Department has jurisdiction over the USPTO, meaning Lutnick is the boss of the USPTO Director John Squires. Squires, who became 60th director of the USPTO a year ago, has been publicly effusive in his praise of Lutnick.
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Under IGRA, gaming is generally prohibited on land taken into trust after 1988 unless it qualifies under specific exceptions. Scotts Valley claims its Vallejo property falls under the “restored lands” exception for federally recognized tribes.
While Interior agreed that Scotts Valley met requirements regarding its modern ties to the area and the timing of the acquisition, the department ultimately concluded the tribe failed to demonstrate a sufficiently significant historical connection to the land.
In court Friday, DOJ attorney Amber Dutton-Bynum argued that Scotts Valley could not meet the high threshold for irreparable harm required to secure an injunction. She maintained that the tribe knowingly chose to invest in the Preview Casino while its gaming status remained uncertain, as reported by Law360. Dutton-Bynum added that the modular buildings could easily be repurposed for non-gaming commercial uses if the prohibition stands.
