Indian driver in UAE wins Rs 37 crore jackpot after 15 years of buying lottery tickets: ‘Want to go back to India’

Palliyali has been living and working in the UAE for nearly two decades. On the evening he purchased the ticket online, at around 8 pm, he had no idea it would soon change his life. The news reached him while he was driving back to Sharjah from Abu Dhabi after completing a delivery. “Since I am a regular customer, I usually get calls from the company,” he said. “But they usually call in the middle or the end of the month saying that there are offers on tickets. I wondered why they would call me in the beginning of the month in the evening.”

When he was told he had won the jackpot, the news left him momentarily speechless. “I asked them if it was a prank call even though I knew it wasn’t,” he recalled. After hanging up, he called his wife. “She checked online immediately and then told me that my name was on the website as the winner.” The win came after years of persistence. Palliyali said he had been purchasing Big Ticket entries every month for the past 15 years, despite the financial strain.

“I have been buying this ticket every month religiously for the last 15 years. As you can imagine, as a driver, setting aside Dh1,000 per month was a task. Many times, my wife would complain that the money could be used for other things. Some months, I wouldn’t even tell her that I had bought the ticket,” he said.

Interestingly, he never followed the results closely or watched the draws live. For him, buying a ticket had simply become a routine. “Buying a ticket was just a way of life for me. I never really imagined winning it or doing something with the money. The only wish I had was that one day I would win something – even if it was the prize of Dh100,000.”

Since the prize money will be divided among four people, Palliyali will receive just under Dh4 million as his share. He now hopes to return to India and start a new chapter of life. “I have been driving all over the UAE for 20 years. Now, I want to go back to India and settle down. This money will definitely help with that,” he said.

He also plans to use part of the prize to support his daughter’s future. She is currently pursuing a BBA degree in Bengaluru after completing her schooling at the Sharjah Indian School. For now, the scale of the win still feels unreal to him. “It is still only beginning to sink in. Maybe after a few days I will have a better idea of what to do,” he said.