How Kerala started India's first government lottery in 1967, the first ₹1 ticket and ₹50,000 prize, and how the lottery grew into today's weekly and bumper draws.
Few government schemes are as woven into everyday life in Kerala as the lottery. Here is how it began, and how a single ₹1 ticket grew into a statewide system with seven weekly draws and six bumpers a year.
A first for India: 1967
Kerala was the first state in India to run its own government lottery. The Department of State Lotteries came into existence on 1 September 1967, and in the same year private lotteries in the state were banned.
The idea is credited to the then Finance Minister, P. K. Kunju Sahib. According to the Directorate of State Lotteries, the aim was twofold: to give economically weaker people a steady livelihood through selling tickets, and to raise money for public welfare without adding to the tax burden.
The first draw: Republic Day, 1968
The very first Kerala lottery ticket cost ₹1, and its first prize was ₹50,000. Its draw was held on 26 January 1968.
That date is a small historical curiosity: under the national lottery rules in force today, no lottery draw may be held on a National Holiday.
From one lottery to a statewide network
The department grew into a full directorate. Today its headquarters is at Vikas Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, with regional offices in Ernakulam and Kozhikode, 14 district lottery offices and 21 sub-offices. Tickets reach buyers through a large network of authorised agents and sellers, and a welfare fund board supports agents and sellers.
Today the draws are held at Gorky Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, every day at 3 PM.
A model for the rest of the country
Kerala's government-run model was soon copied by other states. Decades later, the central government brought lotteries under a common legal framework with the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 and the Lotteries (Regulation) Rules, 2010. They set out conditions every state lottery must follow, such as the state conducting its draws itself and a limit of six bumper draws a year. Each state can still choose whether to run a lottery at all.
Paper only: the online lottery ban
In 2005 Kerala banned computerised and online lotteries while continuing to sell paper tickets. Online lottery dealers challenged the ban, and in 2015 the Supreme Court of India upheld Kerala's right to prohibit online lotteries in the state. Kerala lottery tickets are still paper tickets sold through authorised agents and sellers.
A lottery with a social purpose
Lottery revenue has long been linked to welfare. The best-known example is the Karunya scheme, which gives financial help to people who cannot afford treatment for serious illnesses such as cancer and kidney disease. Two of today's weekly lotteries, Karunya and Karunya Plus, carry its name.
Names that changed, and prizes that grew
The line-up of weekly lotteries has changed many times. Results from earlier years show names such as Win Win, Akshaya, Nirmal and Pournami. Today's seven weekly lotteries are Bhagyathara, Sthree Sakthi, Dhanalekshmi, Karunya Plus, Suvarna Keralam, Karunya and Samrudhi, one for each day of the week (see the weekly schedule).
The six bumpers (Christmas–New Year, Summer, Vishu, Monsoon, Thiruvonam and Pooja) have become major events. Prizes have come a long way from ₹50,000: the 2025 Thiruvonam Bumper carried a first prize of ₹25 crore.
Into the digital age
The lottery has kept its paper tickets but modernised around them:
- Draws are streamed live on the department's official YouTube channel.
- Results are published on the official website on the day of the draw and in the Kerala Government Gazette.
- Tickets now carry a QR code. The department's official app, Bhagya Keralam, lets buyers scan a ticket to check that it was officially issued (more in our ticket security guide).
Throughout these changes, the basic promise has stayed the same: a government-run draw, held in public, with results anyone can check.
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