It would be really hard for me to do, but I’d call the owner and have them come get the ticket. I’d hope for a reward, but I wouldn’t ask for one.
Now, would you TELL the owner that you had looked up the winning numbers and knew they had won when you called them?
Definitely. There is now way I am handing over something worth tens of millions of dollars without being sure we both know exactly what is at stake. I might even ask for a receipt! 
Give it back, of course.
In the event that the owner does not generously reward me for my strong sense of morals in the face of temptation, I would certainly call a few newspapers and let them know of the good Samaritan who got stiffed by a newly-rich jerk.
(bolding mine)
Not quite. I am asking if anyone believes their ethics would be trumped by practical considerations (or even greed). And I suspect there are posters who would deny any ethical obligation to return the ticket (though I’m not one of them).
If you mailed the wallet to the owner, including a dollar to cover the lost ticket (the others are presumably worthless), the owner is no worse off than if the wallet had been found by a stray dog and chewed to bits. The owner has not signed the ticket as advised to by the lottery board, and until it is signed it is a bearer document. Again, I think keeping the ticket is unethical, but I’m not going to say my position is a slam dunk.
Id hope Id return it, appreciate a reward, but not expect it. Its not my money and I have no right to it.
Of course you cant really know till you’re faced with it, but my life isnt that miserable I need to sell out in order to improve it. And theres enough stories about how that kind of money suddenly turning up can cause real problems rather than really help anyhow.
Otara
Ethics are immaterial: I would send him his ticket immediately.
And yes, I’d tell him that he’d won.
If you don’t care about ethics (or presumably morality), then why are you giving him the ticket?
I would definitely keep it. After I claimed the money, I would make sure the person got their wallet back anonymously (would probably also give a generous anonymous monetary gift).
Yeah, I hate hypotheticals like this one, because although I know the ethical thing is to return the wallet and the ticket, I know I’d keep the ticket and chuck the wallet, unless I could return it anonymously, and feel a twinge of regret about it for the rest of my life. Says something about myself that I don’t care to dwell on and definitely don’t like.
I’d cash the ticket and send the guy the nicest wallet available and a solid gold St. Anthony (patron saint of lost objects) medal.
Cash the damn ticket. Anybody who says otherwise is BS’ing or delusional.
The right thing to do would be to find the owner and give them the wallet.
I’d like to think I’d be that 1 person in a million that would give it back … but I’m not gonna lie and say I would. I probably wouldn’t.
Don’t most lotteries have a clause saying that if you win, they can publicize your name and image however they wish?
Given this, I wonder if it’d have made a difference to some people if the jackpot had still been high, but less likely to gain public attention? Or been super high, and MORE likely?
(I assume the OP specified “random numbers” to assure us that the guy who lost the wallet would never recognize that his numbers won, or that someone else was claiming it, just from news reports.)
I would contact him and have him come and get the ticket. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I kept the money.
Because it’s his, not mine. Honour always trumps morality.
Or just a more ethical person than you :).
I’d totally give it back. Right now, I have my integrity and no millions of dollars, and I’m pretty happy with my life. I’m not particularly interested in finding out how happy I’d be with millions of dollars and no integrity.
That said, I’d definitely let them know that they had a winning ticket. If they stiffed me, whatever, I’ve gotten by so far without lottery winnings. But if they didn’t, that’s pretty awesome.
I lost my wallet back in December. It had some lottery tickets in it. I never got it back. As far as I know none of them were winners.
As for the hypothetical, I wouldn’t check the lottery tickets to see if they were winners because if I knew, it would be too tempting to keep them.
Yeah, maybe it’s the guilt learned from a Catholic upbringing, but I can’t see how I’d be able to live with myself, knowing I’ve basically stolen somebody else’s massive fortune, and, worse, knowing whose fortune it was, seeing pictures of his/her family in the wallet, etc. I think it literally would drive me slowly crazy.
Now, if I really wanted to milk it for all its worth and have the potential to make some “honest” money and publicity out of it, I could always drop the media a tip. I’m sure that would make for a great story, probably going national, and, who knows, maybe I’ll get invited along to a talk show or something. I would definitely prefer this course of events to just nabbing the $80M for myself.
Definitely return the wallet and ticket. I’d call the person and have them come get it or meet me somewhere, because I’d be afraid of it getting lost in the mail. Not a good idea to mail a tiny piece of paper worth millions of dollars. Although if anyone wants to send me one, go for it.
80,000,000 bad karma points are likely to come back and bite you in the ass.
I’d give back the ticket and hope for a nice reward.
ETA: I’d make him come and get it. I trust the US Postal Service pretty far, but not that far…