Mangalore man wins $1 million Dubai raffle

mangaloretoday.com

Dubai, Oct 03: An Indian expat turned millionaire while another drive home a Mercedes Benz after their ticket numbers were drawn in Dubai Duty Free raffle on Tuesday, Gulf Today reported.

Praveen Aranha, who works as a management accountant at Atlantis The Palm, won a staggering $1 million with ticket number 3969 in Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire and Finest Surprise promotions held at Concourse A – Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport. Aranha has been residing in Dubai for the past 16 years. He is a management accountant at the Atlantis in Palm, Jumeirah. He is bascially from Bendorewell in Mangaluru. His family moved to Mumbai in 1974 and settled there.

Aranha has been participating in Dubai Duty Free s promotions for 15 years. Winning the raffle jointly with two of his colleagues who shared the ticket price equally with him, Aranha said he now wants to save a portion of the prize money for his daughter’s higher education. I will save a portion for my daughter s education who is currently in the United States studying business administration," Gulf Today quoted him as saying.

This is an amazing win and I think everybody should give it a chance, expect the unexpected," added Aranha, is the 151st Indian national to have won the prize worth a million at the Duty Free raffle since its inception in 1999.

Forty-year-old Ronni Thomas, an Indian national from Sharjah, also won a Mercedes Benz S560 (Diamond White) in Series 1732 with ticket number 1262.