A fake winning Powerball ticket went viral on Facebook, proving yet again that people will share anything, especially if there's a prize involved.
A Facebook user named Nolan Daniels posted a poorly-photoshopped picture of him and the supposedly-winning Powerball ticket on Thursday, Nov. 29. Moreover, Daniels offered to give no less than $1 million to a person chosen at random from those who shared the picture.
More than one million people have already shared Daniels' "winning" picture, proving that numerous Facebook users would share anything, regardless of how obviously fake it is. The picture even went viral outside the social network, spreading to blogs and various Web sites.
The image looks altered even to the untrained eye, and it's not even good photoshopping. The pictured ticket shows signs of simple copying and pasting to make the numbers look like a winning permutation. As Gawker points out, however, a real ticket features the numbers printed in numerical order. Daniels' ticket does not.
The joke is quite obvious, but that hasn't stopped the picture from spreading like the most contagious disease. As previously stated, the picture has over one million shares already, and over a hundred people per second continue to share the ruse.
A number of those who shared Daniels' picture have already started to post increasingly nervous comments and notes, as the share count goes higher and higher. Offering $1 million dollars (granted, fake) will do that.
On the other hand, many people may not be as amused by this ruse as Daniels probably is. There is a thin line here between joke and scam, and if that thin line breaks it may lead to retribution. Daniels only shares his location with friends, and it's probably a good idea to keep it that way.
Since the drawing of the record $587.5 million Powerball jackpot, a couple in Missouri has been identified as the holders of one of two winning tickets. The other winner apparently bought the lucky ticket in Arizona, but has not come forward so far. He was, however, reportedly captured on a gas station surveillance camera when he found out he won, and he did not look anything like Daniels.
