# Question for Irish Dopers: Waking Ned Devine **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802 "2005-06-10T21:55:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/1 "2005-06-10T21:55:28Z")
Oh, what the hell, better safe than sorry.In the movie _Waking Ned Devine_, virtually the entire population of an Irish village conspires to collect and share a large Lottery jackpot, by attesting to an investigator that one of their number is the man who bought the winning ticket (the actual lucky one having died of shock when he watched the numbers being drawn on television.Now, here in California, USA, a winning lottery ticket is payable to whoever happens to present it to the prize center. Are things truly otherwise in Ireland? Hell, for that matter, do they even _have_ a lottery in Ireland? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/2 "2005-06-10T22:05:14Z")
> [@](#): > > The winning ticket is the only valid proof of a game played and must be presented to claim a prize. [http://www.lotto.ie/infocentre/faq.asp](http://www.lotto.ie/infocentre/faq.asp) What would really happen, in the courts etc., would have to be discovered in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/3 "2005-06-11T07:52:16Z")
There’s a lottery all right - I remember being at a wedding in some small town not far from Galway in the mid 90s and the joke was we should all have been buying our tickets there becasue the winners always come from small towns no one has ever heard of 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/4 "2005-06-17T12:54:40Z")
I think that the 2 guys who found the dead body with the ticket realised that they could never claim the prize themselves as everyone in the village would know that it wasn’t them who bought the ticket (guessing of course that they hadn’t bought one that weekend). Then again it is the entire plot of the movie so maybe the ‘truth’ had to be muddled a little. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/5 "2005-06-17T13:11:06Z")
Didn’t Ned sign the ticket on the back? I think you can do the same thing here in the states. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/6 "2005-06-17T14:02:35Z")
Well, they could collect, but then they’d have to ride a motocycle nekkid. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-irish-dopers-waking-ned-devine/307802/7 "2005-06-17T15:08:20Z")
Ned signed his ticket.