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Don't be fooled: That winning Powerball ticket photo is a hoax

A Facebook user named Nolan Daniels posted a photo of himself holding a "winning" Powerball ticket. It's a fake, but that hasn't stopped a million people from sharing it 24 hours after it first went online.
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Don't be fooled.
Don't be fooled.
Published: Nov. 30, 2012 at 8:06 PM
By GABRIELLE LEVY, UPI.com

An old adage tells us that we should believe only half of what we read and a quarter of what we read online.

It doesn't look like even a quarter of what's online--at least on Facebook--is true.

A word to the wise: if you see something on Facebook, there's a good chance it's fake.

Around 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday, a Facebook user named Nolan Daniels posted a photo of himself holding up a Powerball ticket--with the winning jackpot numbers.

"Looks like I won't be going to work EVER!!!! Share this photo and I will give a random person 1 million dollars!" the post says, and 24 hours later, more than a million people have fallen for his poorly-executed hoax.

Not only is Daniels clearly not one of the identified winners (a family from Missouri and a someone from Arizona, possibly identified as this man, won), his supposedly winning ticket is easy to debunk.

When a lotto ticket is purchased, "the tickets print the white ball numbers (the first five numbers) in numerical order."

It's right there on the Powerball FAQ page.

Daniels's ticket reads 22, 29, 23, 16, 5, with Powerball number 6: the correct numbers, in the wrong order.

Nice try, though.

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