It’s a Pretty Mean Prank to Make Your Mom Think She Won the $1.6B Powerball Lottery

A 62-year-old nurse and mother of seven thought she’d hit the literal jackpot last week when she won the record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot. She went wild. Her coworkers went wild. The story was even on the news: “California Nurse Wins Powerball!” But it turns out the whole thing was a prank orchestrated by the woman’s son.

I realize I just spent the afternoon guffawing over the idea of telling my daughter that I had her baby teeth mounted into a terrifying and creepy-looking doll, but this Powerball prank really sucks. That poor woman thought she’d won millions of dollars. She and her seven kids would be set for life.

According to The New York Daily News, the woman’s son called her at work on Wednesday and told her that she had won the jackpot. He even sent her a photo of the winning ticket. She reportedly stayed at the nursing home where she works through the rest of her shift, and her colleagues were ecstatic for her and also very impressed that she kept working throughout the day. When she got home, however, she learned that her son had just been screwing with her.

That’s a mean trick to play on someone! And he’s sure lucky that he has a nice mom who impressed everybody by staying at her shift even though she thought she won the lottery. What would he have done if she flipped off all her coworkers, shouted, “Later, jerks!” and did a doughnut in the driveway on her way out?

It sounds like the woman has a very nice boss, though. Her ticket was actually a gift from the owner of the facility. Shlomo Rechnitz owns 80 healthcare facilities that employ 15,000 people, and he thought it would be nice to buy a lottery ticket for each of the employees and residents, just to give everyone a little something to hope for that day.

After the news got out that the win was just a prank, Rechnitz told ABC News that he thought that was a pretty awful prank. He reportedly said he’d treat the nurse and her family to a vacation anywhere they choose, so she’ll still get a little bit of fun out of it. I hope she makes that son of hers carry her bags the whole way.

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