Has anyone ever gotten or given one of these as a practical joke? It just seems so not-funny. It seems both cruel and even dangerous, as in either losing a friend or even getting beaten up for it! Not to mention someone trying to cash it in and getting busted for counterfeiting. Or just for causing a scene when the convenience store refuses to honor it.
Funny if given to someone who hasn’t got a lot of money problems, but I have seen the change of facial expression on someone who, like many of us, could find even a few thousand dollars a life-changing experience find out that they have been duped by a fake lottery ticket. It’s just sad.
About a year ago, I bought three of those fake scratch-off lottery tickets and gave them to some friends. At the time, we were on a boat on a booze-cruise on Lake Erie.
I used the excuse that, earlier, I bought some smokes at a gas station and had some extra dollars so I bought 4 lottery tickets. One for me and…, “Here…you guys can have 'em.”
The first guy was suspicious and knew that it was fake right away.
The second guy was an idiot and thought he had a losing ticket. sigh
The third guy fell for it hook, line and sinker! After he scratched the card and it revealed that he had “won” $10,000, he stood frozen for a moment. I started playing the part and yelling, “It figures! I buy a winning ticket for someone else!”, and “You’d better give me a cut!”. The other unsuspecting folks were cheering him on and praising his good luck. However, when the others wanted to see the ticket, he wouldn’t let go of it! In fact, he was grasping it so tightly (in the lake breeze), that his fingers were turning white. Even after he read the back of the card, which said stuff like, “To claim ticket winnings, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Loserville, U.S.A.”, he still didn’t catch on. It took nearly 5 minutes for him to come out of shock and realize that the ticket was fake. If we hadn’t been good friends, I undoubtedly think he would’ve punched me.
We all still think, had I grabbed the ticket, waved it around, and “accidently” let it blow overboard, he really would’ve fallen for it…hook, line, and sinker! 
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- Somebody I know made some fake scratch-off lottery tickets once (when he was really bored), except that they didn’t have winning prize amounts on them. They were printed to appear as though they’d already been scratched off, and they had phrases like “Hey Loser! It Sure Sucks To Be You!” or dirty pictures on them (2 people engaged in oral sex, woman getting rear-ended by a dog). He scattered them around a shopping mall; we never heard about them again.
Two possible problems:
- Somebody I know made some fake scratch-off lottery tickets once (when he was really bored), except that they didn’t have winning prize amounts on them. They were printed to appear as though they’d already been scratched off, and they had phrases like “Hey Loser! It Sure Sucks To Be You!” or dirty pictures on them (2 people engaged in oral sex, woman getting rear-ended by a dog). He scattered them around a shopping mall; we never heard about them again.
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- On IL tickets, there’s a legal notice that says that creating fake tickets is some sorta special crime. None of what he made had any cash prize printed on them, so I don’t know how likely it would be for anyone to turn them in anywhere. The state calls out the MIB or something, I guess.
- He couldn’t figure out how to keep regular dot-matrix print from rubbing off of glazed card stock. Print shops carry card stock that’s basically the same as what the state uses, but if your hands get just a little bit sweaty the print starts to smudge badly.
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I still liked the general idea though. - DougC
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- The same guy was rather odd; he did almost the same thing by printing fake money that had a green XXX picture in the middle of both sides instead of a president. He’d go to the top floor of a local 3-story mall when it was busy and “accidentally” drop these crumpled-up bills over the railings through the atriums, and watch people pick them up and look at them. It was his belief that “there’s not enough sex in the world”. - DougC
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ARGH, these things piss me right off. 2 years ago at Christmas dinner was at my aunts. After dinner my aunt handed out real Stocking Stuffer tickets to everyone and a fake one to my cousin (He was 20 at the time, he was adopted at birth by my aunt and now deceased uncle and he has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and is a bit slow)
We all scratched ours, and I won $50, but of course, Cory won $10,000. Everyone was VERY happy for him, he came over and hugged me and said he was taking us all out to dinner. His sister and my aunt were killing themselves laughing and finally let him in on the joke. My fiance and I were both disgusted at this. :mad:
6 months later for my grandfather’s birthday my aunt tried to pull this again, but he didn’t fall for it. He was VERY mad at her for doing it to Cory but kept his mouth shut until then. I was raised by my grandparents and I’ve NEVER seen him yell like that.
This is a great practical joke!
About a year ago I picked up a few here in Chicago. My best friend is a bartender, and I gave her one with her tip. I hung around for a while but she didn’t scratch it off by last call. I didn’t want to ruin the joke so I just left and went to the next bar. (Here some bars close at 3:00 am and some at 5:00 AM depending on their liquor license).
About an hour she shows up at the next bar and starts battering me with her purse, over and over. It was hilarious.
She had agreed to split it with the other girl bartending with her ($5k each), and they already “spent the money” in their minds.
“Oooh I’m gonna pay off my student loans, and do this and do this and do this and do this… wait redeem at the north pole???”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA! oh god it was awesome
Well, I suppose that depends.
If you’re the sort of person who gets their jollies from someone elses embarassment, disappointment, and other forms of emotional pain, I bet they are wonderful.
Me? If you were to play this joke on someone, I’d personally have found the person you played the joke on repeatedly applying their fist to your nose hillarious.
I don’t get it when candid camera does it, I don’t get it when america’s bloopers and practical jokes does it and I surely don’t get it when spy TV does it.
Other forms of low humor I get… but practical jokes just aren’t one of them.
Too cruel, IMO. Lots of people have big big problems that could be solved by money, and teasing them with the answer to their prayers is beyond the pale.
Ditch the dot matrix printer and get one of these a counterfieters dream machine. I have a buddy with one of these and its frightening what you can do with this and a good scanner. Gag tickets and such would be a breeze, maybe a little clear coat of some kind before printing a silver layer to protect the printing underneath.
I will admit, the whole OP seems like a situational thing, I know I could really use a little extra cash right now but I don’t think I would hit anyone or believe it was a real ticket with obvious signs of fakery/gag status (loserville, etc)
Well there is a level of common sense with things like this:
Don’t give it to a hungry family of six
Don’t give it to people without a sense of humor
Don’t give it to people you aren’t good friends with
Don’t give it to people you THINK will be offended
But if you have a good relationship with the person IMO they are really damn funny.
I bought my friend a drink after the ‘incident’ and we had a good laugh. She has ‘gotten me back’ worse and it was also funny.
I never ever ever buy scratch-off tickets, and even still, all the fake tickets I’ve ever seen looked obviously fake. I at least know what my state’s lottery logo, which is on the tickets, looks like.
Oh, and DougC–I’m fairly certain the law against making fake lottery tickets only applies to people who would try and forge a real, winning ticket, not practical jokes.
Preston Sturges made a charming little movie around this scenario called Christmas in July
Nothing like dangling false hope to someone and then ripping it away…a real knee slapper.
How about making up a fake article about a cure for cancer and showing it to your terminally ill uncle! That would be a killer!
Or…or…I know…tell your little nephew he is getting a pony for Christmas!
Gee…this is fun.
On second thought.
Na…it ain’t funny.
It’s cruel and stupid.
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- I ended up involved when he wanted to find a way to put the scratcher-stuff back on. Out of curiosity we looked around online and tried a few methods with melted crayons (a couple of which came startlingly close, you can even kinda get the printing on top of the wax) but we couldn’t ever get the wax spread that thin and that evenly.
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- I dunno, that’s not the way it works with currency, is it? And he did that too. Mebbe I shoudnta said anything…
The trend I am seeing in replies here is that people who have given them to others find them really really funny. People who have recieved them, don’t.
I have a hard time imagining continuing a friendship where somone knew me badly enough to think I would find this funny. I agree with DMark that its about as funny as a fake “cure for cancer” article. I can see that this would be fun if the person getting it is very, very, comfortable fincancially, but for most people? No…
Ye gods! I am nearly teary eyed at the thought of somone pulling this one on me 
I have seen something similar on Candic Camera, but there the guy was scratching for his boss, and the tickets were destroyed. Obviously his reaction to them being fake was a big PHEW! He was left with a smile and a feeling of relief after a few seconds of terror. Giving winning cards to somone otherwise is doing it the other way round, a few seconds of relief and joy, replaced by dissapointment.
This thread is revolting. I hope you’re not planning on starting any threads on giving hot foots, or putting razorblades in Halloween apples.
Closed, AND moved to MPSIMS, as there was never a General Question here.