Emirates Draw in the UAE: Licence, Games and Odds

Emirates Draw is not available in the UAE. It paused its UAE draws on 1 January 2024 and moved abroad, where its draws run online under an Isle of Man licence that the regulator’s register listed as suspended on 2 October 2026.

Emirates Draw lost the bid for the UAE’s only lottery licence; its MEGA7, EASY6 and FAST5 draws are run for players in other countries under the licence held by Tycheros (Isle of Man) Limited. For players in the UAE, the licensed alternative is The UAE Lottery.

Emirates Draw was one of the UAE’s two big weekly draws, alongside Mahzooz, and still draws thousands of searches a month from people wondering whether it is real, whether it is legal and where it went. This article answers those questions from primary sources — Emirates Draw’s own terms, the Isle of Man regulator’s register and the GCGRA’s decisions — and explains how its games worked, what the odds were, who won the AED 100 million prize and what UAE residents can play instead. Last updated: 19 October 2026.

News · Published 19 October 2026

Emirates Draw at a Glance

Is Emirates Draw Available in the UAE?

No. Emirates Draw announced a “temporary pause” of its UAE operations from 1 January 2024, when the newly created federal regulator, the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), required unlicensed draws to stop while it set up the national licensing system. The pause became permanent for the UAE: in December 2024 Emirates Draw said it had “shifted our focus to international markets”, and Khaleej Times reported that UAE residents “can no longer access the Emirates Draw website or participate in its draws, as the site is restricted within the country”.

Its own terms say the same thing in legal language. To hold an account you must not be “prohibited or restricted” from playing under the laws of the place where you are “physically located when transacting”, and Emirates Draw states that it does not intend its games to be entered from jurisdictions where participation is prohibited. The UAE is one of them: only GCGRA-licensed or GCGRA-supervised draws may operate there, and the regulator states that playing with unlicensed operators is illegal for players as well as organisers.

Is Emirates Draw Licensed?

Not in the UAE, and its overseas licence is now suspended. Here is the chain, from primary sources.

No licence from the UAE regulator

The GCGRA’s framework allows a single national lottery licence. Emirates Draw applied for it in early 2024, as did Mahzooz’s operator, but on 28 July 2024 it was awarded to The Game LLC, which launched The UAE Lottery. On 9 December 2024 the GCGRA said that, apart from Big Ticket and the Dubai Duty Free draws, pre-existing lotteries “will not be considered for continued operations” and had been ordered to shut down. Emirates Draw does not appear on the GCGRA’s register of licensees.

An Isle of Man licence — held by its partner

Emirates Draw’s terms of service, as published in July 2026, describe the site as “an iLottery platform operating under the brand name Emirates Draw”, which is “a network partner of Tycheros (Isle of Man) Limited”, and say its services are “provided under the Isle of Man licence held by Tycheros (Isle of Man) Limited pursuant to the OGRA 2001” — the Isle of Man’s Online Gambling Regulation Act. In other words, Emirates Draw does not hold a gambling licence in its own name; it operates under its partner’s.

That licence was suspended on 2 October 2026

The Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission’s public register of online gambling licence holders lists Tycheros (Isle of Man) Limited as follows: licence type “Network Services”, valid from 29 January 2025, status “Suspended (2 October 2026)”. The register does not give a reason, and we found no public statement from Tycheros or Emirates Draw about it. A suspension normally stops the holder from carrying on the licensed activity while it lasts; what it means in practice for Emirates Draw’s international draws and for customers’ balances has not been explained publicly. We will update this article when it is.

Emirates Draw Timeline

Emirates Draw’s whole UAE run lasted just over two years; since 2024 it has operated only for players outside the country.

How Emirates Draw Worked

Emirates Draw was built, like Mahzooz, around a purchase rather than a ticket. You bought a pencil — the company presented the purchase as support for its corporate social responsibility programme — and each pencil gave you one entry into the draw of your choice. You picked your numbers or used a “randomiser”, could enter up to five upcoming draws at once, and paid by card, wallet balance or Bounz loyalty points. Draws were broadcast live on its website and social media, and every entry also went into raffles with guaranteed winners.

The company tied its brand to environmental projects: from December 2021 it funded coral reef restoration off Khor Fakkan in Sharjah and Dibba in Fujairah, and in 2023 it received a Guinness World Records certificate for a protection campaign.

Emirates Draw Games: MEGA7, EASY6 and FAST5

MEGA7 and FAST5 chances are our calculation from each game’s format and match the figures reported by The National. Prices and prizes are those reported for the games; they may differ outside the UAE and over time.

MEGA7 prize tiers

When the UAE edition offered its AED 200 million jackpot at the end of 2023, Khaleej Times set out the MEGA7 prizes: AED 7 for three matching numbers, AED 50 for four, AED 1,000 for five, a share of AED 250,000 for six and the jackpot — shared between winners — for all seven. Every entry also went into a raffle in which 15 participants won AED 10,000 each. Three matching numbers, the most common win, comes up about once in eleven entries; the AED 7 prize is less than a sixth of the AED 50 entry price.

FAST5: a prize paid as income

FAST5, launched in 2023, paid its grand prize as AED 25,000 every month for 25 years rather than as a lump sum — AED 7.5 million in total, spread over a quarter of a century. Its odds of 1 in 850,668 made the top prize far easier to win than MEGA7’s, and three guaranteed raffle winners took AED 75,000, AED 50,000 and AED 25,000 each week.

The AED 100 Million Winner

On 16 March 2025 Emirates Draw announced its first AED 100 million MEGA7 jackpot — about US$27 million and the largest prize in its history. The winner was Sriram Rajagopalan, a retired engineer from Chennai, India, who had worked in Saudi Arabia from 1998 to 2023. He told Khaleej Times he had picked his numbers at random, tapping them on his phone with a stylus with his eyes closed, the day after his 56th birthday. The win was confirmed by Tycheros, whose Paul Chader called it “a historic moment” for the lottery.

The winner lived in India, not the UAE — a reminder that by 2025 Emirates Draw’s players were abroad. UAE residents could no longer take part.

Is Emirates Draw Real or Fake?

Emirates Draw is a real company that ran real draws in the UAE from 2021 to 2023 and has paid real prizes, including the AED 100 million MEGA7 jackpot. But “real” and “legal for you” are different questions:

• In the UAE, it is not licensed and not available. Any site, app or agent offering Emirates Draw entries to UAE residents is either unofficial or acting outside the law.
• Abroad, it relied on its partner’s Isle of Man licence, which the regulator lists as suspended since 2 October 2026.
• Lookalike sites exist. The domain named in Emirates Draw’s own terms is emiratesdraw.com; treat any other site using the name with caution, and check it against the operator’s terms before entering any personal or card details.

Emirates Draw Login, App and Account Balances

Searches for “Emirates Draw login” and “Emirates Draw app” come mostly from former UAE players. When the UAE draws were paused in January 2024, Khaleej Times reported that accounts would stay active, that balances were secure and that “every prize, whether small or big, can be withdrawn and paid in full”. Since then the website has been blocked inside the UAE.

If you believe you still have a balance from the UAE period, contact Emirates Draw through the details in its terms — customersupport@emiratesdraw.com or +971 4 356 24 24 — and keep a record of your account email, phone number and transactions. Do not download “Emirates Draw” APKs from third-party sites, do not use a VPN to reach a service that is restricted in the UAE, and never pay anyone who offers to “release” a balance for a fee.

Emirates Draw vs Mahzooz vs The UAE Lottery

The UAE Lottery’s Lucky Day is now the closest legal equivalent to Emirates Draw for UAE residents: the same AED 50 entry, a pick-your-numbers format, a multi-million-dirham jackpot and guaranteed raffle prizes in every draw. Our UAE Lottery guide explains how it works and the latest numbers are on our results page. For the story of the other closed draw, see our Mahzooz article.

Will Emirates Draw Return to the UAE?

There is no sign of it. The GCGRA’s framework has one lottery licence, held by The Game LLC, and the regulator has said that pre-existing lotteries other than Big Ticket and Dubai Duty Free will not be allowed to continue. Emirates Draw would need a new type of licence or a change in the framework to come back, and with its partner’s Isle of Man licence now suspended, its international operation faces its own questions. Claims of a “relaunch date” in the UAE are not backed by any announcement from the operator or the regulator.

Until then, the licensed draws in the UAE are The UAE Lottery, Big Ticket and the Dubai Duty Free promotions.

Legal Draws in the UAE Today

• The UAE Lottery — Lucky Day (AED 50, Wednesday and Saturday), Pick 3, Pick 4 and scratch cards, licensed by the GCGRA. See our UAE Lottery guide.
• Big Ticket Abu Dhabi — the monthly AED 500 airport raffle, authorised to continue under GCGRA supervision. See our Big Ticket guide.
• Dubai Duty Free — the Millennium Millionaire raffle at Dubai International Airport, also authorised to continue.
• Play971 — the only online casino and sportsbook with a confirmed GCGRA licence. See our Play971 guide.

Our UAE gambling laws guide explains why anything else — including Emirates Draw — is not legal to play from the UAE.

Play Responsibly

Number draws with eight-figure jackpots are designed to be exciting and are very unlikely to pay off: MEGA7’s top prize was a 1-in-10-million chance per entry, and its most common prize returned less than a sixth of the stake. Decide in advance what you can afford, play only with licensed operators, and stop if it stops being fun. If gambling is causing you or someone close to you difficulty, confidential help is available from BeGambleAware.

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