It’s a classic prank: the old fake lottery ticket. Designed to look real and dupe the recipient into thinking they just won a fat chunk of change, this joke gift is the perfect thing to hand someone if you have a wicked sense of humor and enjoy seeing instant joy drain from someone’s face.
And for a TikToker named Jay (@not.jayswift), this seems to be the case. In a viral TikTok that’s accrued over 361,000 views, Jay shared that he planned on having a very interesting Christmas with his family as he ordered the scratch-off tickets to dupe whoever played them into thinking that they’ve won big.
“I ordered fake lottery scratch offs where you win a million dollars for my family on Christmas. I’m not going to be able to breath. Omg,” he wrote in a text overlay of his video, which was capped off with laughing and crying emoji.
As it turns out, he wasn’t the only TikToker who thought of pulling this prank on their family. One user in the comments section said they, too, did something similar, but it quickly revealed the nasty side for their mother-in-law. “My mil showed her true colors when my husband gave her one and she thought it was real,” TikToker @bridget0317 shared.
@not.jayswift ♬ original sound – monaethescientistedits
Someone else said that they pulled the same gag on some co-workers, which may have gotten them in trouble with their supervisors as they thought they didn’t need to work anymore. “I did this to some coworkers who was effin w/me.Left them n the break room when I knew they’d go 2 lunch. They thought they won n left 4 the day,” another shared.
There were others who thought Jay was messing with people’s emotions too much, depending on what people’s reactions to the fake scratch offs would be. “Playing a dangerous game depending on what family you come from. Good luck,” one said.
Several others simply wanted Jay to live-stream his family members thinking they were instant millionaires.
While Jay certainly seems to think the prank is nothing but harmless fun, there was one redditor who shared on the site’s very popular “Am I the Asshole?” that they gave a “struggling friend” a fake lottery ticket and asked if they were in the wrong.
The redditor said that they planned on handing their friend Mike the gag gift at his birthday party. The thing is, Mike had recently lost his job and all of his savings were pretty much depleted, meaning that the money couldn’t have come at a better time. Mike was behind on his mortgage payments and was in fear of having his home foreclosed on, so the $50,000 joke win was going to afford him some much needed financial breathing room. However, Mike had only told his friend he’d lost his job, not that he was about to lose his house.
“So the party comes and everyone’s having a great time and Mike’s opening all the gifts, when it’s my turn I hand him the lottery ticket and make up some excuse of not knowing what to get him so I got him this. So he scratches the ticket and as soon as he sees it’s a winner he starts crying, like intense crying. I haven’t seen him cry this bad in a long time, and in between tears he’s thanking God and me and at this point we’re all starting to get worried and ask what’s going on,” the redditor shared. “Mike starts telling us about how he recently lost his job, which we all knew, but what we didn’t know is his savings were pretty much gone and he hasn’t been able to make his house payments so they were going to foreclose his home. And the winnings from the ticket would be almost enough to finish paying off his mortgage.”
After realizing his joke went too far, the redditor said he had to let him know that it was just a joke, to which his friend softly said “Oh” as he accepted the real $50 cash present as his gift. After retreating to another room, the redditor approached Mike to apologize further, but Mike wasn’t having it and “blew up on” the prankster, telling them that he didn’t want to see them for a while.
The redditor wanted to know if they were wrong for giving that gift, and pretty much every single person in the comments section of the post told them they were.
Here’s hoping Jay doesn’t encounter a similar situation at his own Christmas gift exchange.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Jay via email for further comment.
