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‘My stomach dropped’: Man swaps brother’s winning lottery ticket in shocking betrayal
A man confessed on Reddit to secretly swapping his brother’s winning lottery ticket for a losing one, pocketing a six-figure prize.
A man took to Reddit to confess to a shocking act of betrayal—swapping his brother’s winning lottery ticket with his own losing one and pocketing the six-figure prize. Years later, the guilt still haunts him.
Sharing his story in a viral Reddit post, the man explained that his brother isn’t the type to play the lottery, but on a whim, he purchased a ticket while they were out together. Amused, the poster decided to buy one too. Days later, he found his brother’s unchecked ticket lying on a kitchen counter and decided to compare the numbers.
“And my stomach dropped. It wasn’t the jackpot, but it was a lot. Low six figures. The kind of money that could wipe out debt, buy a new car… or cut my mortgage in half,” he wrote.
Without much thought, he swapped the tickets and left. A week later, his brother mentioned he had forgotten to check his ticket and might have thrown it out. “I wanted to throw up,” the man admitted.
The stolen winnings went straight into his mortgage, allowing him to pay it off a decade earlier. But while the money changed his life, the guilt never faded.
His brother remains financially stable, which he says “helps ease the guilt a little.” However, a recent charity raffle comment reopened old wounds. “This afternoon, at a charity raffle we entered for a good cause but didn’t win anything, he casually complained about how he never wins anything, and I immediately felt a tight knot in my chest,” he shared.
Take a look at the post:
The post sparked a heated debate online. One user commented, “You could at least have gone half each.” Another added, “I would have shared if I'd won myself but got tickets with someone else, especially my brother. It would be as much fun watching someone else use the money as it would paying off my own nonsense.”
Despite years of keeping the secret, the man admitted he still thinks about it too much. “Every time I see a lottery ad or hear someone talk about a big win, I feel sick,” he confessed.
