Fake Winning Lottery Ticket Causes Ecstasy -- Then Fury. What Now?

[epdaws]

This was hard for me to even believe:

Our family does a gift exchange of the variety you've probably heard called numerous things: Yankee Trader, Chinese Gift Exchange, Thieves Christmas, etc. One person opens a gift, the next can steal or go under the tree, etc.

Well, my brother ended up with a couple of lottery tickets. He and his wife have thousands in school debt and are struggling month to month. She scratched off the ticket after the exchange and found it to be a 10k winner.

It was total joy in the household. 30 family members, celebrating with my bro and his wife. They were talking about paying off some loans and what a break this was for them. They even gave the ticket a quick glance to see that it was legit. It seemed so.

15 minutes later, my cousin (the black sheep of the family, really) announces, "Now, hold on, make sure you read the super tiny print on the back of the tickets!" In mega-small print practically requiring a magnifying glass, the print said that it was a gag gift.

My sister-in-law immediately started crying. My brother looked like he was ready to jack my cousin.

Question: how long can the gag go on before it's not funny? What would you do?