Always keep certain things hidden from your family!

This guy shares how he won the lottery and all his family started demanding money from him.

Check out how things went downhill.

AITA for refusing to share my lottery winnings with my family, even though I used the family numbers?

I (22M) recently won a decent amount of money in the lottery. Not a massive jackpot, but enough to be life changing for me: pay off debts, buy a small apartment, and invest a bit.

Now for the context.

He explains how things usually are with his family…

In my family, there’s been an informal tradition for years.

On my grandma birthday, someone usually plays lottery numbers based on important family dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc). Sometimes we play together, sometimes everyone plays on their own.

There has never been an explicit agreement that if someone wins, the money gets shared. It was always treated as a fun tradition.

This time, I played alone, with my own money, but I used those dates (to be specific, grandma’s birthday day, month and year, my dad’s birthday day, and the day and month i graduated).

This is where it gets bad!

I won. When I told my family at first it was all celebration. Then the comments started:

“These are family numbers.”

“Without the tradition, you wouldn’t have won.”

“It would only be fair to share, even just a little.”

Some relatives are genuinely struggling financially (unemployment, debt), others aren’t. I told them I’m not going to split the prize because:

He was not expecting things to get weird like this…

– I paid for the ticket myself

– There was never any agreement to share winnings

– If I had lost (like I did many times before), no one would have reimbursed me

– Money changes dynamics, and I don’t want to become the family ATM (not that i won enough to be called an ATM but you get it)

That’s INSANE!

That said, I did offer to help in specific situations (like, helping with a small debt once or twice), but not to divide the prize. This was seen as arrogant and selfish. One aunt even said I “got rich off the family.”

Now part of my family isn’t speaking to me, and they’re treating me like I betrayed everyone. My parents are split: they say I’m technically right, but that sharing would avoid conflict.

AITA for not sharing the winnings, even though I used numbers tied to my family?

GOSH! That sounds problematic.

Why would he not make it clear with his family?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user isn’t sure why this guy would even announce that he’s won.

This user knows the family is just a bunch of gold diggers.

This user believes this guy owes nothing to his family members.

This user knows what to do of this money!

This user knows this guy needs to learn a lesson here.

Somebody’s going to get exploited by his family.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.