Bumper Onam lottery winners in Kerala prefer anonymity

The Kerala government's Onam lottery ticket that carried a bumper prize money of Rs 25 crore was won by four persons hailing from Tamil Nadu.

Lottery department sources said that the four winners preferred anonymity. They had turned up with the ticket at the lottery directorate in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. Formalities for handing over the prize money are progressing.

It has been learnt that the four are natives of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. They purchased three Onam bumper lottery tickets by sharing the cost. Two of them are involved in real estate business, one person is running a hotel, and another person is working as an employee at a firm run by one of them. All are aged around 50.

They purchased the tickets from the shop at Walayar in Palakkad, close to the Tamil Nadu border, while returning after visiting a friend who is under treatment in Kerala. The four will get a total prize money of around Rs. 14 crore after deducting taxes and the agent's commission.

Many winners of bumper prizes are now preferring anonymity as some of the earlier winners had narrated the difficulties they faced when news broke of their earnings.

Lottery department sources said that earlier also people from other states had won bumper prizes of state lotteries. Kerala lotteries used to witness brisk sales at places close to the Tamil Nadu borders, the sources added.