Is giving someone a lottery ticket as a gift and they win $500,000 on it the same thing as giving away $500,000 for free?

If you hadnt produced the ticket, this person you gifted would never have won. But you paid $1 to $5 for it. Everyone else paying into the lottery pool paid for the rest.

No, because the $500k was never yours to begin with, but baudkarma has best answer

If you give someone a lottery ticket as a gift and they DON'T win, is that the same thing as not giving them a gift at all?

Not really free, you had to buy the lottery ticket.

If you gave away a $1,000 car to someone who then sold it for $500,000, how much did You lose? 

no the cost of the ticket as a gift is enough , if it happens to win $500,000 then you deserve it , he person doesnt know if the ticket will win or lose anyway ..

If you give somebody a lottery ticket that you purchased for $1 and that lottery ticket was not yet a winner then your responsible for giving away a $1 gift.

But if that lottery ticket wins while it's in your possession and then you give it away you are responsible for paying the gift tax on it

No its not like you had any idea if the ticket was a winner or loser.

🥴😊

No. 

But I can see why you'd think that. 

If you hadnt produced the ticket, this person you gifted would never have won. But you paid $1 to $5 for it. Everyone else paying into the lottery pool paid for the rest.

That depends. If you give it to them after it becomes or is revealed to be a $500,000 winner, yes. If you give it to them before it becomes or is revealed to be a $500,000 winner, no. If you give it to them before it becomes or is revealed to be a $500,000 winner, then all that you are giving away is the price of the lottery ticket, which is its market worth, or if you yourself got it for free, then all you are giving away is its innate worth, which is the odds of it being a winner multiplied by the amount it may win (e.g., if odds are 1 in 1 million that it will win $500,000, then its innate worth is only 50 cents). Only upon becoming or being revealed to be a $500,000 winner does its value increase to $500,000, so if that doesn't happen until AFTER you give it away, then you haven't given away $500,000. 

This is key because it makes all the difference for tax-filing purposes. Giving someone a ticket that has already become or is already revealed to be a $500,000 winning ticket makes the giver federally liable to pay gift tax on $500,000, gift tax being a tax paid by givers of gifts valued over $14,000 (according to present tax code), not by the receiver, the receiver then being exempt from having to pay income tax on it. Giving someone a ticket that hasn't already become or isn't already revealed to be a $500,000 winning ticket makes the giver not liable for any gift tax as the value of the ticket when it was given was under the $14,000 threshold and so the receiver must instead pay income tax on the $500,000.