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Kerala man working as driver in Dubai wins Rs 24 lakh lottery after trying his luck for 2 years

Basheer Kaipurath, who has lived in the UAE for 25 years, said he plans to use part of the Big Ticket prize money to support his family in India.

2 min readNew DelhiJan 5, 2026 11:39 AM IST

Despite the win, he has no plans to stop trying his luck and said he will continue participating in future Big Ticket draws (Representational image/Unsplash)

After over two decades of toiling on Dubai’s roads, Indian expat driver Basheer Kaipurath, 57, has won 100,000 dirhams (approximately Rs 24 lakh) in the Big Ticket e-draw. The Kerala native has lived in the UAE for 25 years now.

According to a report published by Gulf News on Sunday, Kaipurath won the prize with ticket number 276640. For the past two years, he has been buying Big Ticket entries every month, hoping that his luck would eventually turn.

When the organisers called to inform him of the win, Kaipurath was initially unsure if the message was real. “Dh 100,000? I have won?” he asked in disbelief, the report said. Even after the confirmation, he repeated the details aloud, almost to convince himself: “Yes, I bought a Big Ticket. Dh 100,000?”

Kaipurath shared that he plans to use part of the prize money to support his family in India. Despite the win, he does not intend to stop trying his luck, and said he will continue participating in future Big Ticket draws, hopeful that more good fortune lies ahead.

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His story comes months after another headline-making lottery win in the UAE, when a 29-year-old Indian man secured the country’s biggest-ever prize. In October, Anilkumar Bolla Madhavrao Bolla won a record Rs 240-crore jackpot during the 23rd Lucky Day draw, beating odds of more than 1 in 8.8 million.

In 2024, a Punjabi woman, who received cash from her husband as a wedding anniversary gift and used the money to buy a raffle draw ticket online, won $1 million (approximately Rs 8.3 crore then), becoming the 229th Indian to win the Millennium Millionaire promotion. She had been buying the Dubai Duty Free (DDF) tickets for the last 12 years in her husband’s or her children’s names.