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Step 1
Look for spelling and grammatical errors in the letter or email declaring you to be a winner. Most lottery scams originate in other countries and are perpetrated by people for whom English may be a second language. A real letter from a legitimate company wouldn't be full of mistakes.
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Step 2
Ask yourself if you entered the supposed lottery. Often, a scam letter or email will claim that the lottery is sponsored by a large company such as Microsoft and that winners were picked randomly in some ambiguous way. That's not how real lotteries work. A legitimate lottery requires you to buy a ticket or make an entry.
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Step 3
Look for impersonal notifications, referring to you as "Dear Lucky Winner" instead of by your name. If you legitimately entered a contest and gave contact information, the correspondence would be personalized.
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Step 4
Be wary if the notification instructs you to keep your prize a secret. A real lottery is just the opposite; winners are used for publicizing the contests. Scammers want you to hide your supposed winning so others won't alert you to the scam.
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Step 5
Be careful about a letter that requires an urgent response. There are guidelines in legitimate lotteries for when you must claim your prize, but it's rarely a matter of days. Criminals try to create a sense of urgency in order to get you to act without thinking and possibly recognizing the scam.
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Step 6
Be on the lookout for tax scams. If you're required to pay a fee for taxes or processing--or some other supposed reason--it's a tipoff that the lottery is a fake. Many lottery scams will send you a check as part of your supposed winnings, but you are instructed to send part of the money back to pay for taxes or some sort of fee. The check is actually a fake, but by the time your bank realizes it you will already have wired the money to the scammers and will be liable to the bank.
