The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Lottery.com and several former executives, accusing the leadership team of orchestrating fraudulent deals to artificially inflate the company’s revenue.
The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court on January 22, 2026, targets former CEO Lawrence Anthony DiMatteo, former executives Matthew Clemenson and Ryan Dickinson, and Vadim Komissarov, the head of the SPAC that merged with Lottery.com. Regulators allege the group executed false transactions worth tens of millions of dollars to mislead investors and push the SPAC merger forward.
Fake Transactions and Phantom Revenue
According to the lawsuit by SEC, the alleged scheme began with a $9 million payment for valueless customer data, which Lottery.com recorded as revenue before recycling the funds to overpay for Mexican businesses. In the weeks leading up to the merger, DiMatteo, Clemenson, and Dickinson allegedly arranged a fake $30 million sale of advertising credits, followed by two more false sales worth over $35 million post-merger.
The SEC claims these fabricated deals constituted the majority of the company’s reported revenue, ultimately leaving investors with significant losses when the financials were corrected.
Settlements and Consequences
The complaint charges the defendants with violating federal securities laws, including fraud and false reporting. While Lottery.com faces charges for record-keeping failures, the executives are accused of aiding and abetting the violations.
Clemenson and Dickinson have agreed to settle without admitting the allegations. They accepted permanent bans from serving as officers in public companies and agreed to pay “disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and/or a civil penalty in an amount to be determined by the court, upon motion by the SEC”.
Once marketed as the “Uber” of lottery tickets, the company’s valuation plummeted from roughly $400 million to under $10 million after the board uncovered the fraud in 2022.
