It is tempting to say that little Mohammed Khaled is the first kid on his block to have a Bentley, but given the mania for cars in the UAE, that’s an assumption we can’t make.

It is fair to suggest he will have the longest wait to get behind the wheel of the new Bentley GT V8 Coupe, sticker price about $200,000, which he won in a monthly raffle held by a local bank.

Mohammed Khaled is 8 and the legal driving age in the UAE apparently is still 18 … so the Bentley will have a few miles on it, a decade from now, when our lucky kid can drive it.

Turns out, the UAE is crazy about raffles. To examine The National’s website is to find a long history of big prizes being handed out, generally by businesses looking for customers as well as some media recognition, when the prize is given.

Some others:

–The Syrian woman who won a Mercedes Benz, last month. (And too prim and proper to be photographed.)

–The Pakistani guy who won $1 million in cash, in March, from Dubai Duty Free. (The 187th person to do so in this particular raffle.)

–And here is another $1 million winner, a Briton …

–And another, a 7-year-old Syrian boy, in March.

–Here is the 5-year-old Indian girl who won a Nissan Sentra at the Dubai Shopping Festival.

–The South African expat who won $272,000 in cash from a local telecom.

–And the biggest prize noted so far, the 5 million dirhams ($1.36 million) won by 20 or so people at a travel agency in Dubai, also at the Dubai Shopping Festival.

Even local soccer clubs are into the giveaways, as they try to boost attendance.

–Al Jazira, the Abu Dhabi club, his given away a Ferrari Italia 458 at least three times; the first went to a teacher from Cameroon. The Ferrari Italia is about $240,000 to drive off the lot.

–And Al Ahli, the most prominent Dubai club, apparently is giving away two Mercedes Benzes after every league home game this season. All 13 of them. Maybe the most winnable of all raffles in the country because Ahli averages maybe 3,000 fans a game.

Little Mohammed Khaled might even have been interested. Until he won the Bentley, that is.