Sunil Kumar Sadasivan, an Indian maintenance technician living in Abu Dhabi, has won the grand prize of AED 30 million in The UAE Lottery’s Lucky Day Draw. The prize amounts to more than Rs 78.5 crore as per today’s exchange rate.
The 52-year-old, originally from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, became the second Grand Prize winner in The UAE Lottery’s history. But Sadasivan did not rely on random numbers to win the game. Instead, he picked numbers inspired by the birthdays of his daughter, his wife and himself.
“I thought, why not use the dates that matter most to me? I started with my daughter’s birthday, then added mine, and then my wife’s birthday,” Sadasivan said, in a video shared by The UAE Lottery on social media.
Sadasivan’s strategy led him to match all seven winning numbers in the Lucky Day draw held on July 1. He became the lottery’s second 30 million-Dirham Grand Prize winner after Tayab Khan, a Nepalese security guard living in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE Lottery is the country’s first federally-licensed lottery. It is regulated by the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), which oversees commercial gaming activities in the UAE. Participants can purchase the lottery ticket for Dh50 and compete for the top prize in every draw.
Each Lucky Day draw offers a Dh30 million grand prize, a Dh5 million second prize, and three guaranteed Lucky Chance prizes worth Dh50,000 each.
In a post on social media platform X, The UAE Lottery congratulated Sadasivan, “whose ordinary evening turned into an unforgettable moment after Lucky Day Draw #260701,”
The UAE Lottery conducts the Lucky Day Draw twice a week, every Wednesday and Saturday at 9:30 pm UAE time.
How Sadasivan plans to spend the prize money
Sadasivan checked his phone between 9:30 pm and 9:45 pm, hoping that he might have won Dh100. But to his surprise, Sadasivan had won the Dh30 million jackpot that night.
“When I saw that I had won, I was shocked. I called my wife and told her. But, she too asked me, ‘Is this for real?'” Sadasivan recalled in the video.
More than a week after hitting the jackpot, Sadasivan said he still finds his victory difficult to believe.
He also shared that he became a father after waiting for 12 years, making his daughter’s birthday especially meaningful to him. He plans to spend the life-changing amount of money on his daughter’s education.
Coming from a modest family background, Sadasivan said that he has been working since a young age and now hoped to take some rest for a while. Sadasivan also wants to use the prize money to establish small businesses, and use part of the winnings to give back to his community.
“I want to improve and complete my house back home. There are a few people who don’t have homes, and I would like to build houses for them as well,” he shared.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)