Kasaragod: Lady Luck smiled on a couple from Kasaragod, twice on Wednesday. The lottery ticket that won the Kerala government's Pooja Bumper of Rs 12 crore was sold by Marykutty Jojo (56), a native of Annakkal at Hosangadi in Kasaragod's Manjeshwar. The second prize ticket of Rs 1 crore was sold by her husband Jojo Joseph (57).
They have two separate lottery ticket agencies --S 1413 and S 1447 -- under the name Bharat Lottery Agency, said Joseph.
The couple had bought 25,000 Pooja Bumper tickets from Kasaragod Collectorate. They have a small lottery stall at Majeerpalla in Manjeshwar. "Most of my tickets are sold in Kannur district," said Joseph who drives around in a Tata Nano selling lottery tickets. "Some of the tickets are given to sub-agents who are our friends in Ernakulam district," he added.
"We exchange tickets because some customers insist on buying tickets from a particular district. So we don't know who the buyers are," he said. "But the chances are high that the winners could be from Kannur district," he said.
Joseph is a native of Manakkadavu near Alakode in Kannur district, and Marykutty is a native of Cherupuzha in Kannur district. In 2005, Joseph fell from a building after the ladder broke and fractured his leg. In 2007, he broke his other leg when a branch fell on it. "I used to do hard manual labour but had to give up on that," he said.
In 2013, the couple sold their land in Kannur district and moved to Manjeshwar in Kasaragod. They started selling lottery tickets in 2018. "But since our connections are in Kannur district, I go there to sell tickets," Joseph said.
Earlier too the couple sold winning tickets. "I have won Rs 2 lakh, Rs 3 lakh, and Rs 5,000. This is the first time that we have sold the winning bumper ticket," he said.
"The winners may not come forward to reveal their name after the bad experience of Anoop of Sreevaraham in Thiruvananthapuram, who won the Onam Bumper of Rs 25 crore in 2022," he added.
Kerala government sells six bumper lotteries - Onam, Pooja, Christmas-New Year, Summer, Monsoon, and Vishu. "The agent will get 10 per cent of the winning prize," said Rajesh, the district lottery officer of Kasaragod.
The winner would have to pay a 30 per cent tax on the rest of the money and take home the rest. In this case, the winner of the bumper ticket would get Rs 7.56 crore. Marykutty would get Rs 1.2 crore and Joseph would get Rs 10 lakh.
