Self-claimed Powerball winner sets of US$1m Facebook photo frenzy
His name is Nolan Daniels, and he's just about to give some random man or woman US$1 million (HK$7.75 million). Or so he claims.
Purporting to be the second Powerball winner in Wednesday's US$588 million payout, Daniels posted a Facebook photo late on Thursday of himself holding a ticket showing the winning numbers. The photo is the only one visible on Daniels's account, which dates to 2008.
"Looks like I'm not going to work … EVER!!!" the purported winner exclaimed. The numbers on his ticket - 5-23-16-22-29-Powerball 6 - correspond to the winning combination, but it has not been publicly verified.
To make the Facebook announcement that much more bizarre, Daniels vowed to give US$1 million of his winnings to a "random" person who "shares" his photo. That set off a frenzy as thousands of Facebook users got in on the action, with the photo being shared more than a million time in 24 hours.
On his Facebook page, Daniels chastised sceptics and said: "Anyone who doubts the legitimacy of this photo will not be included in the 1 million dollar drawing."
But claims of the picture being doctored soon surfaced. Blogger Gabrielle Levy wrote that even though the numbers on his tickets are the right, actual powerball tickets are printed in numerical order and not in the order seen on the picture.
