PALAKKAD: Nestled right on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, the tiny Walayar town located on the Palakkad - Coimbatore highway, is more than just a checkpoint town - it is Kerala’s own jackpot junction, a dazzling maze of neon-lit lottery stalls packed shoulder-to-shoulder. The streets and pocket roads hum with energy, the air thick with hope, and the buzz of buyers from across state borders is impossible to ignore.
Over 130 kiosks and countless street vendors are selling Kerala lotteries here making Walayar a dazzling world of dreams, risk, and relentless hope.
“You wouldn’t see any other place in Kerala where so many stalls and street sellers are concentrated in one locality like in Walayar. Believe it or not, almost all the stalls in Walayar sell well over 500 tickets on a given day. The number crosses 1,000 each on Sundays, when people from Tamil Nadu come in huge numbers and purchase tickets for up to next 10 days,” says C Babu, district secretary of the All Kerala Lottery Traders Union, explaining the magnitude of the lottery trade in Walayar.
“Some believe in a few lucky numbers, many believe in particular weekdays while a huge number of buyers believe in ticket sets and books. The availability of books and sets is also a reason why people flock to Walayar,” Babu adds.
About 96 lakh tickets are printed for a day’s sale by the Kerala government and above Rs 24 crore is distributed as lottery prizes. The maximum prizes are given in Rs 5000s which total Rs 9.72 crore.
“Those who come to Walayar always look for tickets in books (one book is 25 tickets) and sets (a set is 12 books). People generally buy one or two tickets, but in Walayar people generally buy 12 tickets in the same numbers (last four digits). They believe they will win the Rs-5000 prize if purchased in that style, and it has happened scores of times here also,” said a ticket seller in the Walayar Dam Road.
It’s such a buzzling place that the service road of the National Highway and pocket roads are filled with two-wheelers and four-wheelers, majority of them bearing Tamil Nadu registration, but there isn’t a proper grocery shop, garment shop or medical shop, vegetable shop or financial firm in Walayar. And whatever small shops are located there, all sell lottery tickets! There are a couple of small restaurants, tea shops and toddy shops where, too, you can see lottery tickets displayed for sale and they become empty as the lottery results are out.
“There’s nothing here. Just the lottery sales. At least 40 per cent of the buildings and stalls are owned by people from Tamil Nadu. The land price has skyrocketed to Rs 12 lakh a cent on the roadside, but there isn’t an inch available to be sold out,” says Mohammed Basheer, a local resident.
Everyone who holds a piece of land here is busy building commercial spaces. Majority of employees and buyers hail from Tamil Nadu, and most of them speak Tamil.
A quiet yet thriving system operates behind the scenes - online ticket sales! Walayar stalls would provide ticket numbers and its photos through WhatsApp and other social media platforms to their regular customers from faraway places Chennai, Bengaluru and Salem and buyers often transfer money through digital payment apps. “It’s a trade built almost entirely on trust - no receipts, no guarantees, just mutual faith in an unwritten code. Evidently, sellers with Tamil Nadu background have more online customers,” stall owners say.
Lottery agents recall 2023 as a remarkable year for Palakkad and Walayar. Of the seven bumper draws held that year, three first prizes went to buyers from Palakkad. Notably, a Coimbatore resident who purchased 10 tickets from Walayar won the Thiruvonam Bumper, taking home a whopping Rs 25 crore. “Two bumper prizes and countless daily lottery wins came from tickets sold in Palakkad. People believe Walayar brings luck-and time and again, it has proven true,” say agents.
Though the lottery department officials affirm that there is no Walayar magic in winning prizes, banking on this belief, one would see people like Muthuvel (name changed on request), a resident of Kuniyamuthur in Coimbatore, getting off from the Tamil Nadu transport bus at Walayar bus stop and roam the bustling lottery stalls in there. “I come here almost every day, buy my lucky numbers, and wait for the results in the evening,” he shares. He says he would have spent at least Rs 2 lakh purchasing tickets from Walayar.
“I have won small prizes a few times. One day, I’ll hit the jackpot,” he says, with a hopeful glint in his eye.