A woman who paid for her nephew’s winning lottery ticket asked him to give her the winnings but people thought she was being unfair.
Posting on Reddit, the woman explained that she was in a difficult financial position but had got her nephew the ticket as a birthday present, only for him to win big.
She wrote:
“I have had a really rough year, laid off from my job and I’m out of unemployment options. I do own my house and managed to scrape buy to pay my property taxes and insurance with odd jobs but I am eating ramen just about every meal.
I love my nephew and can’t get by on the thought that I wouldn’t be able to get him a birthday present.
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“I scraped together whatever change I could and bought him some lottery scratchers. and holy s**t he actually won (on two of them no less). One was for about $50 which was cool enough but the second one was actually into the middle 5 figures.”
She then said that his immediate family is “well off” so she thought it was fine to get some of the money back, writing:
“My nephew has a fully funded college fund and every material thing he could ever want. when I found out I told my sister that it would be really cool if my nephew gave me at least 3/4 of the winnings. She asked if I was serious. I said I felt I was being very generous because I really need all of it.
But her sister and nephew did not react well. “She actually hung up on me,” she wrote. “I texted my nephew and I think he actually blocked me.”
Responding to the story, people thought she was being unreasonable. One person wrote:
“It was a gift. You don’t get to ask for part of someone’s gift. It sucks you’re having it tough but still doesn’t mean you’re ‘generous’ for asking for only part of the gift. Sure ask them for help, but don’t ask for his gift.”
Another said: “It was a gift. That means it is all his and you are not entitled to any of it.”
And a third said: “You gave him them as a gift. Unless there was some agreed upon handling of a potential win you have zero claim to his money.”
What a sticky situation...