What HGTV Doesn't Want You To Know About My Lottery Dream Home
"My Lottery Dream Home" got off to a rocky start, which may help explain why its production company, 7Beyond Productions, reportedly resorts to subterfuge to make some episodes fit the HGTV series' engrossing format. It's then left up to host David Bromstad, a former Disney visual merchandiser, to work his magic and convince viewers that what they're watching is unscripted and authentic.
In each episode, Bromstad takes lottery winners on tours of three different homes and offers his expert input to help them decide the abode on which they want to spend their newfound wealth. But in the show's infancy, jackpot winners weren't exactly chomping at the bit to flaunt their good fortune on television. "We reached out to close to 1,000 lottery winners and we got 10 to appear on our first season," 7Beyond exec Mike Krupat told Mediaweek. Most of the home buyers also don't have the type of budget to spend on a mega mansion with, say, a solid gold toilet or a waterpark in the backyard. When some fans started tuning in expecting participants to spend as big as Bromstad does on his lavish lifestyle, they were sorely disappointed. "The commercials look like the homes are going to be luxurious and extravagant when in reality, it's average people getting excited about completely average, cookie-cutter houses," wrote one Redditor. "So underwhelming."
Viewers have also seen signs that the show is fake in the same way that "House Hunters" is. "I have definitely noticed that when they tour the house they end up choosing, the house contains items that are still there when they show the follow-up at the end of the episode," one person observed. Also, stories abound of people who know homebuyers who participated in the show's apparent ruse.
Some of the show's lottery winners don't have a choice to make
If an HGTV viewer lives near one of the properties featured on "My Lottery Dream Home" and knows that it was already occupied during filming, you best believe they're going to dish the dirt. On Reddit, one such snitch revealed that Kathy from the Season 16 episode "Gold Lady of Lake Mendota" had been a longtime resident of the home that she supposedly chose on the show. "She bought this lake property several years ago, levelled the house that was on it and built her 'dream house' complete with a pickleball court in the basement. The show is a total fake," they wrote.
According to another Redditor, their neighbors also already owned a home when they appeared on the show. "They were living in the house for two months before the episode was filmed," they revealed. The informant further tattled that one of the other houses their neighbors looked at wasn't even on the market. "The third was actually the featured realtor's own home," they wrote.
In 2015, The Lowdown actually profiled a couple who readily admitted that they agreed to appear on "My Lottery Dream Home" despite already having purchased a new house. Minnesota resident Rhonda Meath also detailed how the production crew made it seem like a long period of time had passed during filming by covering her porch with fake snow. Meath further confessed that she and a friend rigged her front gate to make it seem far fancier than it really was — they used bungee cords to make it appear that it could open automatically. At least Bromstad's effervescent personality serves as a distraction from all that deceit.