Lottery hoaxer finally confesses after fooling 2 million people with a fake Powerball ticket

Nolan Daniels showed the world this fake Powerball ticket on Facebook, then confessed after millions were fooled.

This following hoax story shows how easy it is to manipulate the public into thinking results are real.

Software developer Nolan Daniels decided he was going to test how gullible people were. He did this by photoshopping an existing Powerball ticket with the winning numbers and getting social media to share it as a genuine win.

Some lottery fakes are more sophisticated, like this check in the mail with a request to pay tax of $3,400 to claim the full prize of $125,000. Of course, it never came. PHOTO: Southampton Police

Daniels pledged to give $1 million of his lottery winnings away to one lucky Facebook user among the millions who would share this photo.

He quickly snapped a photo of a ticket and spent 15 minutes moving the numbers to look like winning numbers.

"I knew they were out of order and that the remaining winner had a 10-pick ticket," said Nolan, "but I also knew that would add to my curiosity of who reads the news and does their research before clicking a button."

It worked too well. Within 18 hours nearly half a million Facebook users had shared the photo. In three days it was up to more than 2 million. A lot of people were duped.

A CBC news report on the hoax shows an expert talking about the ticket. Video

The lesson to the story is always check the validity of lottery systems before you take action of any kind. The best way is to find out how long the person has been promoting it.

In this case, it's easy - Nolan was unknown and it should have sparked questions immediately. Always check out the facts.

READ FULL STORY: Huffington Post