One of my friend who is an Mumbai citizen where buying lottery tickets is legal, has successfully bought a dubai lottery(Millenium Duty Free Dubai) ticket online using debit card transaction from mumbai. If outward remittance for buying lottery tickets of foreign country is not allowed by Fema then how was he able to buy the tickets?
And he inquired the foreign lottery company and they said they had sucessfully payed back winnings to the Indian residents who had played through web by doing Bank transfers to Indian accounts. They even display the names of the winners. How did they successfully remit the winnings through bank transfer if Fema doesnot allow the same?
Is there any workaround by which the winners of online foreign lottery are able to transfer there winnings back to India?
Also I have checked Millenium Duty Free Dubai, there have been 3 winners who had buyed dubai lottery online from India and have won crores of money as below:
1. Prabin Thomas
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/dubai/:Man-who-never-left-India-becomes-Dubai-millionaire
2. Farhaan Arman
https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/asianet+newsable-epaper-asnewsab/bengaluru+man+wins+1+million+lottery+in+dubai+flies+down+to+collect+it-newsid-66456677
3.Toms Arackal Mani
https://travelwirenews.com/124th-indian-hits-1-million-dubai-duty-free-jackpot-698984/amp/
My question is will these people face legal issues/penalties as they have tranferred foreign/dubai lottery money in crores back to india and pay its taxes without any issues? Will Mumbai citizen my friend run into any legal issues in case he wins and transfers money back in mumbai or he just has to pay tax? Awaiting your reply at earliest.
