LUCKED OUT

A woman has divided opinion online after she bought her nephew a winning lottery ticket – then asked for some of the cash.

The aunt shared her situation on Reddit, explaining she’d fallen on hard times and was living hand to mouth as she tried to pay her bills.

She said that she’d had a tumultuous year and had been laid off from her job and was out of unemployment options.

She said that she does own her own house and manages to scrape by to pay her property taxes and insurance with odd jobs but was eating ramen just about every meal, but as it was her nephew’s birthday earlier in the month, she scraped together some money to get him a present and got the only thing she could afford – lottery tickets.

To her shock, he won a large amount of cash, stating that the second one was actually in the middle five figures, and that it was like life-changing money, but that she couldn’t exactly say how much.

And that while she was happy for her nephew, she explained her sister and her husband were quite well off, and she continued that her nephew has a fully financed college fund and every material thing he could ever want.

After finding out about the win, she got in touch with her sister to ask if her nephew could give her at least three-quarters of the winnings.

The aunt said, her sister asked if she was being serious, and she said that she thought she was being quite reasonable because she needed all of it, and she said that her sister hung up on her, so she decided to text her nephew but she believes he’s blocked her.

She continued to make the case for her position, saying that she needs the money because it was a matter of her eating or not eating and that her nephew isn’t in that situation, and she said, was she the villain for thinking he should share the winning of the gift she gave him?

Her post has racked up hundreds of comments, with some people understanding her position, while others branded her entitled, and one person said that you couldn’t get more entitled and that she shouldn’t get any of his present, regardless of her situation and his.

But a more understanding person commented that they felt sorry for her and that they understood that she was in a terrible financial situation, but that she gave the lottery ticket to her nephew as a present, so it was his and she had no right to it.

There’s an adage, ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’. She gave him the lottery ticket – therefore his winnings, and he can choose to do whatever he wants with the winnings, and it’s not fair to just demand a cut of it.

It also shows how much he cares about his aunt if he didn’t even offer a portion of it to her, but then you shouldn’t expect money from something you gave to someone else. However, it would have been a kind gesture and the right thing to do, knowing how hard up his aunt is.

But you’ve also got to love how money and material things bring out the best in people – NOT!

And what an awful family this is.

The aunt shouldn’t have asked, but then she shouldn’t have to ask, or perhaps the nephew should have given her a lottery ticket and then said, “There you go, we’re even”.