Mahzooz Draw: What Happened and What Replaced It

Mahzooz no longer exists. The weekly UAE draw held its last show on 30 December 2023 and stopped when the new federal gaming regulator, the GCGRA, ordered raffle operators to pause.

Its operator, Ewings, then lost the bid for the country’s single lottery licence, which went to The Game LLC in July 2024. Mahzooz’s website now says the draw has “permanently ceased operations”. Its place has been taken by The UAE Lottery.

For three years Mahzooz was the UAE’s best-known weekly draw: AED 35 for an entry, numbers drawn every Saturday night, and 66 millionaires by the time it closed. This article explains how it worked, how its rules and prizes changed, who won the biggest prizes, why it stopped, what happened to players’ account balances and to its rival Emirates Draw, and where you can play legally in the UAE today. Last updated: 19 October 2026.

News · Published 19 October 2026

Mahzooz at a Glance

Is Mahzooz Still Running?

No. There has been no Mahzooz draw since 30 December 2023, and none is scheduled. The official website, mahzooz.ae, now carries a single notice: Mahzooz, “previously a weekly draw in the UAE, has permanently ceased operations”, and the site “remains active solely for informational purposes” — past shows, news and stories of its social projects.

That matters because “Mahzooz draw” is still searched thousands of times a month. Old app listings, results pages and social media accounts still appear in search results, and some unofficial sites continue to publish “Mahzooz results”. None of them is a live draw. If a website, app or message offers you Mahzooz entries today, it is not genuine.

If what you miss is the Saturday-night draw itself, the closest legal equivalent today is The UAE Lottery’s Lucky Day, which is drawn on Saturdays — and Wednesdays — at 9:30pm. An entry costs AED 50 rather than AED 35, and, like Mahzooz’s raffle, its Lucky Chance draw pays guaranteed prizes in every draw: three winners of AED 50,000 each.

What Happened to Mahzooz?

Mahzooz did not close because of a scandal or a business failure. It stopped because the UAE changed how gambling is regulated.

In September 2023 the UAE created the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), a federal regulator for lotteries, online gaming, sports betting and casinos in all seven emirates. Before that, prize draws such as Mahzooz and Emirates Draw had operated without a national licensing system. The new authority instructed the weekly raffle operators to pause by the end of December 2023, opened applications for a single national lottery licence in mid-December, and set a deadline in the first week of January 2024.

Mahzooz held its last draw on 30 December 2023 and announced a pause from 1 January 2024, describing it as an “industry-wide mandate” that “aligns with regulators’ efforts to create a well-regulated gaming environment”. Its operator, Ewings, applied for the national licence within the deadline. “The national lottery licence will be awarded to one raffle draw operator in the UAE,” Suzan Kazzi, Ewings’ head of communications, told Khaleej Times in January 2024, pointing to the 66 millionaires Mahzooz had created.

The licence went elsewhere. On 28 July 2024 the GCGRA awarded it to The Game LLC, which launched The UAE Lottery that December. On 9 December 2024 the regulator issued a consumer warning: The Game LLC holds the only lottery licence, the long-running Big Ticket and Dubai Duty Free draws may continue under its supervision, and all other pre-existing lotteries “will not be considered for continued operations” and have been ordered to shut down. That ended any prospect of Mahzooz returning in its old form.

Mahzooz Timeline

Mahzooz changed its game and prizes several times in three years, but it was the national regulatory change of 2023, not its own results, that ended it.

How Mahzooz Worked

Mahzooz was built around a simple purchase. For AED 35 you bought a bottle of water through the Mahzooz website or app; the water was donated to people in need through the operator’s community partners, and each purchase gave you one entry into the weekly draw. You chose your numbers — or let the system choose them — and the draw was broadcast live every Saturday night.

Every entry also went into a separate raffle with guaranteed winners each week, so the draw paid out even when nobody matched all the numbers. Winnings were credited to the player’s Mahzooz account, from which they could be withdrawn to a bank account. Players had to register an account to take part.

How the Rules and Prizes Changed

Mahzooz changed its format three times in three years. The first change made the top prize far easier to win but smaller; the later ones raised it again and spread more money across small, frequent prizes:

Chances are our calculation for a single entry: there are 13,983,816 ways to choose 6 numbers from 49 and 1,906,884 ways to choose 5.

Ewings’ chief executive, Farid Samji, said the 2021 change was “designed to increase the odds of winning and to make it easier for our participants to win great prizes”. The last change, from 23 September 2023, raised the number of weekly winners from around 3,000 to around 90,000, mostly through the new AED 5 and AED 35 prizes.

Mahzooz Winners

The biggest Mahzooz win was the first. In October 2021 Junaid Rana, a 36-year-old Pakistani corporate driver in Dubai earning about AED 6,000 a month, won the AED 50 million top prize in the 48th draw — at the time described as the largest such prize in the Middle East. He told reporters he planned to “lead a simple life”; Khaleej Times later reported that he had set up businesses and bought property. His win came days before Mahzooz switched to the smaller AED 10 million format.

The AED 20 million prize was won several times in 2023, including by an Indian control room operator in Fujairah in November 2023. The final draw on 30 December 2023 ended with two winners — Serhii from Ukraine and Zenobia from India — each taking AED 10 million after both matched all five numbers. That last draw paid AED 24,052,185 to 236,979 winners.

By the operator’s own closing figures, Mahzooz attracted more than 1.4 million participants, created 66 millionaires and paid more than AED 500 million to over 2 million winners.

Mahzooz Login and Account Balances

“Mahzooz login” is still searched more than a thousand times a month, mostly by people wondering what happened to money left in their accounts.

When the draws stopped in January 2024, Khaleej Times reported that Mahzooz and Emirates Draw accounts remained active and that balances were secure until operations resumed or the customer withdrew them, and that “every prize, whether small or big, can be withdrawn and paid in full”. Players were encouraged to withdraw what remained in their accounts.

Since then the website has become an information-only archive and no new withdrawal process has been published. If you believe you still have a balance with Mahzooz, contact the operator directly at the address shown on mahzooz.ae — info@ewings.ae, Ubora Tower, Business Bay, Dubai — with your registered email, phone number and any transaction records. Do not use contact details found in social media comments or messaging groups, and never pay anyone a fee to “release” a Mahzooz balance: that is a common scam.

What Happened to Emirates Draw?

Emirates Draw, Mahzooz’s main rival, paused its UAE draws on the same day, 1 January 2024. Its games included Mega7, with a top prize of up to AED 200 million and odds of about 1 in 10.3 million, and Fast5, a pick-5-from-42 game with odds of about 1 in 850,000, according to The National.

Odds as reported by The National in January 2024, when the UAE draws were suspended.

Emirates Draw also bid for the national licence and lost. It has since moved its business abroad: in December 2024 it said it had “shifted our focus to international markets, now reaching participants in over 175 countries”, operating online through Tycheros, a company based in the Isle of Man. The same statement made clear that UAE residents can no longer access the Emirates Draw website or take part in its draws, as the site is restricted within the country. It holds no GCGRA licence, so playing it from the UAE would mean playing with an unlicensed operator. Since 2 October 2026 the Isle of Man licence it operates under has been listed as suspended — see our Emirates Draw article.

Mahzooz vs The UAE Lottery

The comparison shows a trade-off. Mahzooz’s top prize was smaller but about 4.6 times easier to win per entry than The UAE Lottery’s AED 30 million Grand Prize, and its entries were cheaper. The UAE Lottery offers a larger jackpot, more draws and the protection of a federal licence. Our UAE Lottery guide explains its prizes, odds and what a ticket is worth on average, and the latest numbers are on our UAE Lottery results page.

Will Mahzooz Come Back?

Not in its old form. The GCGRA’s framework allows only one lottery licence, which The Game LLC holds, and the regulator has said that pre-existing lotteries other than Big Ticket and Dubai Duty Free will not be considered for continued operation. For Mahzooz to return, the law or the licensing framework would have to change, or Ewings would have to obtain a new kind of licence — and there is no public sign of either. Reports and videos claiming a Mahzooz “comeback date” are not backed by any announcement from the operator or the regulator.

Big Ticket’s story shows why. It also paused, in April 2024, but the GCGRA allowed it and the Dubai Duty Free draws to continue because both had run at the country’s airports for around 30 years. Mahzooz, at three years old, did not fall into that exception, and the single lottery licence had already gone to another operator. Our Big Ticket guide explains how that draw works today.

Where to Play Legally in the UAE Now

Only GCGRA-licensed or GCGRA-supervised products are legal in the UAE today:

• The UAE Lottery — Lucky Day (AED 50, Wednesday and Saturday), the nightly Pick 3 and Pick 4, and scratch cards. See our UAE Lottery guide.
• Big Ticket Abu Dhabi — the monthly airport draw, AED 500 per ticket, which paused in April 2024 and now operates under GCGRA supervision.
• Dubai Duty Free — the Millennium Millionaire draw, AED 1,000 plus VAT per ticket in series of 5,000.
• Play971 — the only licensed online casino and sportsbook, for players aged 21 and over. See our Play971 guide.

Anything else — including draws that still use the Mahzooz or Emirates Draw names — is not licensed in the UAE, and the GCGRA warns that playing with unlicensed operators exposes players to fraud and to legal risk. Our UAE gambling laws guide explains the rules.

Fake Mahzooz Apps, Sites and Messages

• “Mahzooz results” sites that publish new numbers are showing old draws or invented ones. There have been no Mahzooz draws since December 2023.
• Prize messages saying your number has won a Mahzooz prize are scams. You cannot win a draw that no longer takes place.
• “Balance release” offers asking for a fee or your card details to recover a Mahzooz balance are fraudulent. Contact the operator only through the details on mahzooz.ae.
• Lookalike apps using the Mahzooz name or logo are not run by the operator and cannot sell genuine entries.

Play Responsibly

Draws like Mahzooz were built around small weekly stakes, and the same is true of the legal draws that replaced it: a ticket is the price of a very small chance, and on average it returns well under half of what it costs. Decide in advance how much you will spend each week, never buy entries to win back money, and do not use money meant for rent, family or remittances. If gambling is causing you or someone close to you difficulty, confidential help is available from BeGambleAware.

FAQ