Kerala man becomes $1 million Dubai Duty Free winner, 4 months after moving to UAE

The draw was held on Wednesday, August 20, at Concourse D of Dubai International Airport. According to a Gulf News report, Sreeraj, who works as an accounts assistant in Dubai, came to the UAE only in April this year.

Friends to share jackpot

Sreeraj said that it was his colleague Pradeep, also from Kerala, who encouraged him to buy the ticket that costs AED 1,000 (Rs 22,780) together. While Sreeraj will receive 25 per cent of the prize money, the remaining 75 per cent will go to his colleague, Pradeep. a resident of Dubai for nearly two decades.

According to 55-year-old Pradeep, fortune smiled on him for the first time in more than a decade of participating in the Dubai Duty Free. Pradeep, who works as a document controller for an architectural consultancy, credits Sreeraj’s luck for their fortune.

“We never know if it is his luck that favoured us this time … I think he is luckier,” he told Gulf News.

Sreeraj, who used to try his luck with lotteries back in Kerala, also said that this was the first time he had won anything substantial.

“When [Pradeep] asked me if I wanted to try my luck and join him in buying the ticket, I thought, why not? I wasn’t regular in taking tickets back home and I was never a winner… So, I thought, ‘what if I get lucky here?’,” he said.

Sreeraj said he couldn’t believe his luck when Pradeep informed him about the win.

“When he (Pradeep) told me, I just couldn’t believe it … I asked him many times to confirm it… It was only after that I called up home and told my parents,” he said.

Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire

The Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire draw gives participants a one-in-5,000 chance to win $1 million. So far, 256 Indian nationals have won $1 million in the Millennium Millionaire promotion since it started in 1999. Only a total of ten people have won the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire draw twice.

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