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UAE man 'so happy' to win Dh100,000, plans car upgrade
The win came from one of three tickets he bought. He said that he followed a different strategy for picking each one.
- PUBLISHED: Wed 20 Aug 2025, 5:01 PM UPDATED: Thu 21 Aug 2025, 9:38 PM
- By:
- Nasreen Abdulla
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For the last five months, Abdalla Ali Gharib has been playing the UAE Lottery twice a week, spending up to Dh100. In June this year, the UAE national struck gold by winning Dh100,000.
He said when he found out he had won; he couldn’t believe it. “Honestly, it took a moment to sink in,” he said in an interview with Khaleej Times. “At first, I thought it couldn’t be real. But after checking the numbers several times, I realised it was true.”
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He said he still remembers the moment he found out he won. “I was checking the draw results on the website, and the first thing I saw was the word 'Congratulations',” he recalled. “I didn’t believe it. Then I saw Dh100,000 and checked the numbers again. All of them matched except for one. I was so happy.”
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The UAE Lottery was launched in November last year, following rigorous regulations by the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA). It offers a whopping Dh100-million jackpot up for grabs every fortnight as well as prizes ranging from Dh100 to Dh100 million, depending on the number of digits matched.
First person to call
According to Abdalla, who is in his forties, the first person he told about his windfall was his best friend.
“He’s very close to my heart, and he’s genuinely happy when I’m happy,” he said. “He congratulated me right away and told me I deserved it.”
The win came from one of three tickets he bought. He said that he followed a different strategy for picking each one. “One was a quick pick with random numbers,” he said. “For the second, I had numbers chosen to represent my family, and for the last one, I picked numbers based on the first thing I saw when I opened my phone — the date and time.” The strategy paid off for him.
He added that with the money he won, he would upgrade his car and will continue playing the game. “I’ll sell my current one and get a better model,” he said. “I have been playing for almost five months, twice a week, playing with Dh50 or Dh100. Of course, I’ll keep playing and hope that next time all my numbers match.”
If all the numbers match, the player wins the Dh100 million lottery. According to the company’s website, the odds of winning the jackpot is approximately 1 in 8.8 million. No one has been able to claim the grand prize as yet but Bishop Woosley, director of Lottery Operations at The Game, which runs the UAE Lottery, has earlier told Khaleej Times that someone will “for sure” win the jackpot and that there was “no doubt about it”.
Earlier this year, the company also launched several smaller, quick-win games to keep engaging with UAE residents. Last month, it launched four new scratchcards which gave players the chance to win up to Dh1 million on the game's website.
