West Bengal State Lottery in 2026: Is It Still Running, and Is It the Same as Dear Lottery?
West Bengal's own state lottery vs the Dear 1 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM draws sold in Bengal: who runs what, what we could verify about WB draws, and where Bengal winners claim.
West Bengal has its own government lottery, run since 1968 by the Directorate of State Lotteries under the state's Finance (Revenue) Department. Its draws carried Bengali brand names such as Banga Laxmi and Bangasree, were drawn in the afternoon, and had ₹6 tickets. The most recent West Bengal draws we could confirm in news coverage are from November 2020, and we could not find an official West Bengal result published in 2026. The 1 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM "Dear" results that most "West Bengal lottery" pages show are not West Bengal's lottery at all: the 1 PM and 8 PM draws are run by Nagaland, and the 6 PM draw by Sikkim.
Two different things share one name
When people in Bengal say "rajya lottery" or "Bengal lottery", they usually mean one of two things:
- The West Bengal State Lottery — the West Bengal government's own lottery, with its own tickets, draws and prize money.
- The Dear lottery sold in West Bengal — tickets printed by the Nagaland and Sikkim governments and sold through stockists and shops in Bengal. Their results are what most "lottery sambad" pages publish three times a day.
Both are state government lotteries ("rajya sarkar lottery" just means a lottery run by a state government). They are not the same lottery, and a number from one is never checked against the other's result.
| West Bengal State Lottery | Dear Lottery (Nagaland / Sikkim) | |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | Directorate of State Lotteries, Finance (Revenue) Department, Government of West Bengal | Directorate of Nagaland State Lotteries (1 PM, 8 PM); Directorate of Sikkim State Lotteries (6 PM) |
| Where drawn | West Bengal | Nagaland for Nagaland draws, Sikkim for Sikkim draws |
| Draw names | Bengali brands: Dear Banga Laxmi, Dear Bangasree, Nababarsha Bumper and others | Dear Vision, Dear Elite, Dear Lucky and so on — a different name for each weekday |
| Time (as last reported) | Afternoon, results at 4 PM (2020) | 1 PM, 6 PM, 8 PM every day |
| Ticket price (as last reported) | ₹6 (2020) | ₹7 on current regular tickets |
| First prize (as last reported) | ₹50 lakh on weekly draws (2020) | ₹1 crore on every regular draw |
The law behind the "where drawn" row is section 4(g) of the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998: a state's lottery must be drawn inside that state. A draw held in Nagaland or Sikkim cannot be a West Bengal government draw.
What the West Bengal State Lottery is
The West Bengal Finance Department's page on the Directorate of State Lotteries gives the basics:
- The Directorate was set up in 1968 to run lottery draws for state revenue. It sits under the Finance (Revenue) Department.
- Seven weekly draws were introduced with effect from 14 May 2018.
- Six festival bumpers were held each year: New Year, Holi, Nababarsha (Bengali New Year), Rathayatra, Puja and Diwali. Six is also the legal maximum — section 4(j) of the 1998 Act allows no more than six bumper draws of a lottery in a calendar year.
- Draws were held in public under two independent judges and streamed live on YouTube and Facebook.
- Tickets were sold to a stockist company, the West Bengal Lottery Stockists Syndicate, on an actual-sale basis.
- The latest figures on the page are for 2018–19, when the Directorate reported net earnings of about ₹223.76 crore.
The same Directorate also runs non-lottery draws — for land plots, municipal shops and Class-I admission to government-sponsored primary schools — which is one reason it still exists as an office.
Is the West Bengal State Lottery still running?
We could not confirm that it is. Here is what the record shows:
- The official page is dated. The Finance Department's Directorate page reports nothing after 2018–19 and has no 2026 results or schemes. It also gives no closure date.
- The last draws we could confirm are from 2020. News coverage shows West Bengal draws such as Dear Banga Laxmi Teesta (August 2019) and Dear Bangasree Damodar (Saturday 7 November 2020, results at 4 PM, ₹6 ticket, ₹50 lakh first prize).
- Lottery directories say it has stopped. Lotto.in, for example, states that West Bengal no longer runs its own draws and that Bengal buyers play Nagaland lotteries. It gives no date.
- "West Bengal State Lottery result" pages are unreliable. On 25 October 2026 we checked one page titled as the West Bengal result. It gave three different first-prize amounts (₹1 crore, ₹1.5 crore and ₹26 lakh) for the same draw, labelled it both 6 PM and 8 PM, credited another results site as its source and linked to no government page.
Our position: treat any "West Bengal State Lottery result" as unverified unless it comes from the West Bengal government. If you hold a ticket printed by the Government of West Bengal, take it to the Directorate rather than relying on a website. The Finance Department page lists the office at 1st floor, 69 Ganesh Chandra Avenue, Kolkata 700013 — the page is old, so phone or visit before you send anything by post.
Why "Bengal lottery" searches show Dear results
Dear tickets are widely sold in Bengal, so results sites relabel Dear results for Bengal searches. Three signs of that:
- Nagaland keeps an office in Kolkata. The Directorate of Nagaland State Lotteries lists a nodal office at Nagaland House, 1st Floor, LA-Block, Plot No. 6, Salt Lake, Sector III, Kolkata 700098 — a sign that its tickets are sold and claimed there.
- The draw times match. "Bengal lottery result 1 PM / 6 PM / 8 PM" are the Nagaland and Sikkim Dear slots. West Bengal's own draws were reported at 4 PM.
- Many pages mix the two. Pages titled "West Bengal Dear lottery" or "Kolkata lottery result" usually show the Dear sheet.
To check which lottery your ticket belongs to, read the front. It names the issuing state ("Nagaland State Lotteries" or "Sikkim State Lotteries" on Dear tickets), the draw name, the date and the time. Match those four details to a result sheet from the same state.
Which Dear draw comes from which state
| Time | State | Draw names (Monday → Sunday) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 PM | Nagaland | Dear Rise, Dear Shine, Dear Spark, Dear Star, Dear Victory, Dear Vision, Dear Wish |
| 6 PM | Sikkim | Dear Legend, Dear Prestige, Dear Regal, Dear Supreme, Dear Crown, Dear Elite, Dear Empire |
| 8 PM | Nagaland | Dear Clover, Dear Destiny, Dear Dream, Dear Fame, Dear Horizon, Dear Lucky, Dear Magic |
Each name repeats on the same weekday every week. The full list, with older names still printed on some tickets, is in our Dear weekly draw names guide. Today's results are on the 1 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM pages.
Is it legal to buy Dear lottery tickets in West Bengal?
The Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 lets each state government decide. Under section 5, a state "may, within the State, prohibit the sale of tickets" of lotteries run by every other state. The Supreme Court's 1999 judgment in B.R. Enterprises v. State of U.P. is read as an all-or-nothing rule: a state can ban other states' lotteries only if it also stops its own — it cannot pick and choose.
Some states have chosen a complete ban — Tamil Nadu in 2003 and Karnataka in 2007. West Bengal has not followed that route: Nagaland runs a claims office in Kolkata, and Dear tickets are sold through stockists in the state.
What that means in practice:
- Buy only paper tickets from a licensed shop. Section 4(b) of the Act requires the state to print the ticket with its imprint and logo. A "ticket" sent as a photo or PDF on WhatsApp, or "booked" on a website, is not a state-printed ticket.
- Keep the ticket undamaged. The original ticket is the only proof of ownership.
- If you live outside Bengal, the rule is your own state's, not West Bengal's. Rules differ from state to state, so ask the shop whether it holds a licence to sell Nagaland or Sikkim tickets where you live.
Claiming a Dear prize in West Bengal
The rules come from the state that ran the draw, not from West Bengal.
Prizes up to ₹10,000 — the 2nd to 5th prizes and the ₹1,000 consolation prize on a regular draw — can be claimed at an authorised lottery shop.
Prizes above ₹10,000 — in practice the ₹1 crore first prize, or a bumper prize — are claimed from the state lottery directorate:
- Nagaland tickets (1 PM and 8 PM): send the claim to the Director, Nagaland State Lotteries, P.R. Hill Junction, Kohima 797001, or hand it in at the Kolkata nodal office in Salt Lake (address above).
- Sikkim tickets (6 PM): claim with the Directorate of Sikkim State Lotteries in Gangtok. The Kolkata office belongs to Nagaland and handles Nagaland tickets.
Nagaland's claims must reach the Directorate within 30 days of the draw date. You need the original ticket, the claim form, PAN and Aadhaar, bank details with a cancelled cheque, three passport-size photographs, attested photocopies and an affidavit of ownership. Prizes above ₹10,000 are paid after 30% TDS under section 393(3) of the Income-tax Act, 2025. The full list, with the mistakes that get claims rejected, is in our prize claim guide.
18+ only. Lottery is a game of chance; play only with money you can afford to lose. This guide is information, not legal advice. Lottery Sambad Today is not affiliated with the West Bengal, Nagaland or Sikkim governments.