'Rs 25000 spent on buying Onam bumper tickets'; What happened after results?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thiruvonam bumper lottery is a game of luck. There are varied stories of success and ill luck surrounding Kerala’s most vaunted lottery ticket. Very few keep high hopes of winning the bumper prize while spending their valuable earnings on the ticket, but regardless of the tales, the sales keep soaring every year.

This time, more than 75 lakh tickets were sold in the state. During earlier times, the ticket prize was Rs 100, and the first prize was Rs 5 crore. Later, the ticket price and prize money gradually increased to the current range of Rs 500-25 crores.

The prize money of the Onam Bumper was increased to 25 crores from 2022. That year, the first prize was won by Anoop, a native of Thiruvananthapuram. An exuberant Anoop gleamed on television screens announcing his big win, but his subsequent days were marred by persistence and pleading from relatives, friends and neighbours for financial help. He was thus caught in a quandary, and it took years for Anoop to come out of his obligations.

Another contrasting story is of Palakkad native Muraleedharan, who won the first prize of the Onam Bumper in 2013. Muraleedhan won Rs five crore that year and was all in the news. A few days before the Onam draw, Muraleedharan won a prize of Rs. 25,000 from a Karunya Lottery ticket. In a decision that left many bewildered, Muraleedharan spent the entire amount to buy Onam bumper tickets, and luck favoured him as one of those tickets won him the first prize.

In 2022, when the prize money was increased to 25 crores, the Thiruvonam bumper of the Kerala Lottery attracted people from neighbouring states. In the next two years (2023 and 2024), the bumper was won by people outside Kerala. In 2023, four friends who had come to Kerala from Tamil Nadu won the first prize with a ticket bought from Walayar, and in 2024, another young man from Karnataka won the first prize. This year, the baton has returned to a local native in Sarath S Nair.