Billionaire Portelli parties hours after unlawful lottery charges filed

Adrian Portelli was 35 years old and already a billionaire when South Australia's Consumer and Business Services filed charges against him on a Thursday in early December. The allegations were serious: nine counts of conducting or assisting in unlawful lottery operations, leveled at Portelli personally, and ten matching counts against his company, Xclusive Tech Pty Ltd, which operates under the brand name LMCT+. The alleged unlawful activity spanned from late January 2023 through mid-May 2024—a window of more than sixteen months during which, authorities contend, the company ran games of chance that violated state law.

That same Thursday night, hours after the charges were filed, Portelli threw a party in his Melbourne penthouse. The apartment, valued at $39 million, became the venue for what he later described on Instagram as a celebration. A $3 million McLaren sports car had been craned up to the rooftop. Portelli posed for photos holding his infant son, the luxury vehicle gleaming behind him. Female dancers moved through the space. DJ Havana Brown, a recognizable figure in Australian entertainment, performed throughout the evening. At one point, Portelli danced with the DJ and executed a shoey—a stunt in which someone drinks from a shoe—for the camera.

LMCT+ markets itself as a shopping tool and rewards club. Members pay monthly fees of $19.99, $49.99, or $99.99 depending on their tier, and in return receive points that accumulate toward entries in regular giveaways. The prizes are substantial: new cars, cash awards of $500,000, even $1 million jackpots. The structure is simple enough on its surface—a loyalty program with a gambling component—but South Australia's regulators concluded it crossed a legal line. The giveaways, they alleged, constituted unlawful lotteries.

Portelli's response came swiftly and defiantly. Using the LMCT+ Instagram account, he posted a message directed at South Australia: the state's gambling commissioner wouldn't allow residents to win life-changing prizes through official channels, he wrote, so he would run exclusive daily cash giveaways of $1,000 instead. He promised to visit the state again to distribute grocery vouchers. The tone was not apologetic. It was almost mocking—a billionaire announcing he would circumvent the very regulation that had just been used to charge him.

This was not Portelli's first foray into high-profile generosity. Days before the charges, he had handed out approximately $150,000 in grocery vouchers at two Coles supermarkets in Western Sydney, framing the gesture as cost-of-living relief. He had performed similar stunts in Adelaide and Melbourne. The pattern was consistent: Portelli as benefactor, Portelli as the man willing to give away money when governments and institutions would not. The charges complicated that narrative but did not seem to deter him.

Portelli, known colloquially as "Lambo Guy" for his affinity for Lamborghini sports cars, had built his wealth and public profile partly through this persona—the young billionaire who spent lavishly and gave away fortunes on a whim. The penthouse party, the McLaren, the dancers, the defiant Instagram post: all of it fit the character he had cultivated. Whether it was a calculated move or genuine indifference to the legal jeopardy he faced remained unclear. What was certain was that he was not behaving like someone chastened by serious criminal charges.

He was scheduled to appear before Adelaide Magistrate's Court on January 15. Until then, LMCT+ continued to operate, and Portelli continued to post. The question hanging over the story was whether the court would view his conduct—the party, the promises of continued giveaways, the apparent dismissal of the charges—as contempt, defiance, or simply the behavior of a man confident enough in his position to ignore the machinery of the law grinding forward against him.