Big Ticket: Indian and Bangladeshi expats together win Dh100,000 in September e-draw
Four e-draw winners include a painter, a driver, a machine operator and a sales executive
Abu Dhabi: Four Big Ticket participants from India and Bangladesh have each been awarded Dh25,000 in the third weekly e-draw of September.
Ayyalu Samy, a 41-year-old machine operator from Tamil Nadu, India, has spent the past 15 years working in the UAE while his family remains back home.
A regular Big Ticket player, he sometimes tries his luck on his own and sometimes joins a group of friends. This time, he bought his ticket alone and left the number to chance.
The random pick paid off. "I was very happy when I received the call. I had purchased this ticket by myself and selected the number randomly, so finding out that I had won was a really nice surprise," he said.
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Sharing his plans for the money, he said. "My family is back home in India, so I want to use the money for them."
He added that he will keep taking part in future draws.
For family and charity
Abul Bashar, a 56-year-old painter from Bangladesh, has spent the past 34 years in Sharjah while his family remains back home.
He learnt about Big Ticket from his brother, a long-time participant. "My brother had been buying tickets for a long time and told me about Big Ticket, so I decided to start trying my luck too," he said. He now plays with a group of 20 friends.
The news of the win brought instant excitement. "I was really very happy. It felt so good to receive the news and know that all of us had won together," Abul said.
The prize will be shared among the group. Abul will put his portion towards two things that matter to him. "I want to send my share back home to my family, and I also want to set aside some of it for charity," he explained. He confirmed that he will continue buying Big Ticket entries.
Luck in numbers
Mohammed Shahadat Hussain, a 38-year-old sales executive from Bangladesh, has lived in Abu Dhabi for the past 16 years. After so long in the UAE, he says Big Ticket was hard to miss. "Big Ticket is so popular here, so of course I wanted to try my luck," he said. He had bought tickets only three or four times before this first win.
For his latest entry, Shahadat teamed up with 13 friends and kept the selection simple. "I hadn't planned which number I wanted, so I just selected the first one I saw," he explained.
The spontaneous choice proved a winner. "Receiving the winning call was such a good feeling. I was so excited when I found out that we had won."
The prize will be divided among the group, and Shahadat plans to send his share to Bangladesh. He also intends to play more often. "From now on, I want to take part every month and keep trying until I win the grand prize," he said.
Shared celebration
Eldho Mathew, a 30-year-old driver from Kerala, India, has been living and working in Kuwait for the past eight years while his family remains back home.
His friends, already regular participants, introduced him to Big Ticket. After watching them try their luck, he joined in and now plays as part of a group of 25 people.
For Eldho, the win was all the sweeter because the whole group shared it. "It was such a happy moment for all of us. We participate together, so finding out that we had won together was a really good feeling," he said.
The prize will be divided among all 25 members, so everyone gets a share. Eldho has yet to decide what to do with his portion, but he has made up his mind on one thing: he plans to keep taking part in Big Ticket and try his luck again.
