FRANKFORT, Ky. — State leaders promised everyone had a fair shot at a license to sell medical marijuana in Kentucky, but a WHAS11 News exclusive reveals the process may not have been as fair as they hoped.

A winning license holder admitted to leaning into a loophole to get an advantage and increase their odds of being selected in the Jefferson County dispensary lottery.

It’s known as “app-stacking,” something small, local business owners feared would happen.

“We couldn’t apply for multiple applications under the same name, so we had to create businesses — 20 different businesses under 20 different names — in order to get our applications out there,” said Tuesday Coughlin, retail director of Kentucky Alternative Care.

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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told WHAS11 News that he couldn’t discuss the specifics of the situation, nor verify it, because he did not have the details.

“What I do know is that everyone had to submit their corporate paperwork with different individuals being the owners. If these people are admitting to fraud, there may need to be a referral to folks that are out there. But, we certainly set up the system and operated the system as it was set to work,” Beshear said.

“Did certain owners look like they worked with potential operators? Yes, but in the end that appears to be legal in the way that it was set up,” Beshear said.

Coughlin said amassing 20 people to submit applications under 20 different LLCs “paid off.”

“We got one in the 48 tickets,” she said.

Beshear stands by the process, and said there were rules and regulations, and the lottery was done on TV.

“We’d be fine with an audit, but we did it all in public,” Beshear said.

Founder of 502Hemp, Dee Dee Taylor, said “there definitely needs to be an audit.”

Taylor said she has suspected, for months, that groups of people were creating extra businesses to raise their odds of winning a license.

“It’s a shame,” Taylor said. “It’s amazing that someone admitted to it. But, it’s good to hear.”

Taylor put her name in the drawing to win one of the two Jefferson County dispensary licenses.

“I had one business that I used to file one application. Could I have created a whole bunch of LLCs? Sure, I could have. Would it have cost me an extra $5,000 for each one? Yes, it would have,” she explained.

In recent months, multiple state legislators have called for an audit into the lottery accusing the process of not being transparent.

“There isn’t a more open way to do it,” Beshear said. “You can argue that it should have been set up differently in the start, but everyone agreed.”

A spokesperson for Kentucky’s Auditor Allison Ball said, “our office is currently reviewing this issue. To avoid disrupting the ongoing investigation, we are not able to provide further comment at this time.”