I would return it. Imagine how the person who lost it must feel. I would have nightmares of them committing suicide or researching, finding, and murdering me.
Well, I’m the reverse of this. 20 millions sound so uncanny that I couldn’t bring myself to think it’s genuine. 10,000 on the other hand sounds more realistic and I’ll pocket the thing without too much thought in it.
Finders keepers. Fuck the asshole that dropped the ticket. It’s not like he actually did anything to earn or deserve that money anyway. I would return the ID, though.
I’ve handled other people’s money without skimming. But, 80 million dollars for the taking – I’m gonna take it, and live with my guilt.
The TN lottery allows you to play some scratch-offs again online if you lose on the actual ticket. This means my sweet Miguel brings home handfuls he finds outside the convenience store and makes me enter them online. They don’t care who buys the tickets; it’s who signs the back as it’s been pointed out already.
We’ve never won anything, but he’s sure one day we will. ONE DAY!
If I found myself in the scenario you set up I would do the unethical thing and say I found it on the ground, cash it in and get myself a shiny new car. I’m a horrible person, but at least I’m being honest now. 
I never said it was a statistic. I said it was an optimistic view. A good one at that. And if you don’t agree, you’re only proving my point. You’re delusional.
Someone is delusional for just disagreeing with your view (which you are now at pains to point out is non-factual)? Crikey.
Well, how can you argue with that? If you don’t believe me, you’re crazy. Nice. If you think only .1% would return the money, you’re delusional. So there. (I really do think you’re overly pessimistic with your one in a thousand estimate.)
I think the 25% number we’re seeing in this thread is a bit optimistic for the general population, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s an inaccurate representation of the Dope. I sincerely believe a lot of them would give back the ticket. Hell, off the top of my head, I could think of a number of friends I’d be willing to bet my life would return the ticket in just the same type of situation.
My personal guess would be more like 5-10% of people overall would return it, but I think it depends on where you lose the ticket.
Here’s one experiment testing people’s honesty on returning lost wallets. Overall, 74% of the test subjects in Belleville, Illinois, returned the wallet. It’s not a rigorous study–and it doesn’t involve 80 million dollars–but one data point we can start from.
To balance it out, findings in the UK were not quite as encouraging.
i would always return a wallet (and have done so, more than once, with cash and cards intact). That’s actually somebody else’s money. Cashing a lost lottery ticket doesn’t take anything away from whoever dropped it.
Other than buy the ticket, which has the effect of making it his property, whether you think he deserves it or not.
If he drops it and I find it, it’s MY property.
And what do you think you did to earn or deserve it?
Answered with the caveat that this is what I think I would do, but of course I’ve never been in a situation like this, so I really don’t know.
I would contact that person and ask them what number they were playing. If they know, then I give the ticket to them (probably having them come over for it, for security’s sake). If they don’t, then I call up the lottery commission, explain the situation to them, and ask them if they have any way of verifying whose ticket it is. If they can, then I let them handle it from there. If they can’t, then I cash it myself (and probably give about 98% of it to charity). The presence of the wallet just isn’t strong enough evidence of ownership, when that kind of money is at stake.
Nothing.
I’ve tried understanding your logic before, but I just give up.
I like your skeptical nature, but what scenario are you envisioning? I can’t think of any plausible circumstance where I find a wallet with a lottery ticket, cash, and IDs, and it turns out the lottery ticket doesn’t belong to the guy or a lottery pool he belongs to or whatnot.
He bought it for someone else. Possibly me. I’m sure there are people who I don’t know who nevertheless know me.
Does that work?
If I found a winning lottery ticket for 80 million dollars, I’d cash it, then call the guy and say “Great news! You won 10 million in the lottery!” One could live very comfortably off 10 million properly invested, but there’s no reason I should have to.
I am amazed at the number of people struggling to find a rationale for keeping the ticket and returning other stuff like cash. It is all simply property of the owner.
If you accept that the cash in the wallet, which in theory could belong to a third party, belongs to the wallet owner, I just can’t imagine how you can decide differently for other contents of the wallet that don’t have the owner’s name embossed on them.
I would steal it and cash it. If you think keeping it and cashing it is something other than stealing… well, delusional has gotten some bad press in this thread, so let’s just say… rationalizing like a motherfuck.
And… it doesn’t take anything away??? How about 80 million bucks?