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He turned his Mom’s birthday into Rs 27 million
Of course, it still doesn’t match the California ticket that hit a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot in 2022!
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Staff Reporter - Tue, 28, Oct 2025
- 22:58 EDT
- 27
Anilkumar Bolla. / The UAE Lottery
How can a 29-year-old Indian expat in Abu Dhabi afford to stay for a month in a seven-star hotel, zip through the city in a supercar, and bring his entire family over to live the good life?
He can — and then some — if he wins a jackpot lottery.
That’s exactly what Anilkumar Bolla did. Last week, the quiet, soft-spoken Hyderabad native etched his name into UAE history by winning 100 million dirhams (over ₹240 crore or $27 million) in the country’s first-ever grand prize draw of The UAE Lottery. In a single evening — Oct. 18, 2025 — his life swerved from routine to remarkable.
At 8:30 p.m., as the Lucky Day Draw numbers rolled out — 7, 10, 11, 18, 25, 29 and the fateful 11 — Bolla was lounging on his sofa, scrolling through his phone. Minutes later, his screen lit up with a call from the UAE Lottery team.
“I was in shock,” he says, still sounding like he hasn’t fully absorbed the news. “I was sitting on the sofa and just feeling, yes, I won it.”
His ticket wasn’t random. The number 11 in the “Months Set” was a tribute to his mother’s birth month — a small, sentimental gesture that would end up changing his life forever.
When the message finally sank in, Bolla first called a colleague, then his brother in India. His voice trembled. His hands shook. Somewhere, on the other end of a phone line, disbelief gave way to laughter and tears.
What makes this story sparkle isn’t just the sum — 100 million dirhams, enough to buy several Bugattis, beach villas, or private islands — but the emotional symmetry behind it. His mother’s birth month, woven into his ticket, made the win feel less like luck and more like destiny with a personal signature.
“This win is beyond my wildest dreams,” he said, his tone oscillating between wonder and resolve. “When I got the call, I thought it was surreal. I kept asking them to repeat the message. Even today, I still can’t believe my new reality.”
Bolla’s bucket list is equal parts fantasy and forethought: a supercar, a month-long stay in a seven-star hotel, and then — in his own words — “investing wisely and spending it in the right way.”
For The UAE Lottery, this wasn’t just another draw. It was a historic first: the debut of its AED 100 million grand prize, part of its 23rd Lucky Day Draw (#251018). The organizers, visibly thrilled, called it “a remarkable milestone for the country’s gaming and entertainment industry.”
To grasp the magnitude of Bolla’s win, one must glance across oceans — to the land of the world’s most outrageous jackpots: the United States.
There, Powerball and Mega Millions have redefined what “winning big” means. In November 2022, a California ticket hit a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot — the largest in U.S. history, with a cash option near $998 million.
Less than a year later, another California player took home $1.765 billion, while a Florida player bagged $1.602 billion in Mega Millions.
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