Bengaluru man’s reaction to winning Rs 44 crore lottery: ‘hung up, blocked number’

The Big Ticket Series 250 Live Draw winners were declared on April 3. (Image credit: @bigticketoffice/Facebook)

An Indian national has become a ‘crorepati’ overnight after winning the 20 million dirham grand prize in Abu Dhabi’s Big Ticket draw. But when show hosts called Arun Kumar Vatakke Koroth of Bengaluru to give him the good news, he disconnected the call and blocked the number, believing it to be a scam call.

“After receiving the call from Big Ticket, I assumed it was fake, a prank, probably. I disconnected the line and blocked that number. After a while, I received a call from a different number,” Kumar told Khaleej Times after lottery officials were finally able to get in touch with him.

As the winner in the Series 250 Big Ticket Live draw, Kumar will be richer by 20 million dirham or approximately Rs 44 crore.

Kumar had purchased the Big Ticket raffle tickets online on March 22. This was the second time he had ever bought tickets for the lottery, Gulf News reported.

“I bought this ticket through the ‘buy two get one free’ option. The ticket I won was the third one,” said the Bengaluru resident. “I could not believe that I had won the first prize. I am still in disbelief,” he added.

Kumar is now hoping to put a large part of his windfall towards starting a business.

Meanwhile, the second prize in the lottery also went to an Indian - Suresh Mathan, who lives in Bahrain, will receive 1 lakh dirham (Rs 22 lakh).