Jamshedpur: Illegal lottery business under scanner, 60-year-old man arrested

Jamshedpur, Feb 3: A team of police officials nabbed a 60-year-old man while selling a lottery ticket at Baharagora in the Ghatsila sub-division of the district. Named Krishna Arjun Ray, the accused was nabbed with lottery tickets of Bengal and Nagaland state lotteries. Sales proceeds were also recovered from him.

According to police, Ray who is a resident of Baharagora used to lure docile people into buying lottery tickets, claiming that if luck favours one can become a man of a million in a day.

“As we received information about Ray’s activity, the Ghatsila sub-divisional police officer was informed of the matter. It was after the SDPO instructed the Baharagora police station that a team was set up for the arrest of the accused,” said Baharagora police station OC, Santan Kumar Tiwari.

Tiwari said Ray is a habitual lottery ticket seller despite the fact that the sale of lottery tickets is banned in Jharkhand. He pointed out the accused was earlier arrested for running the racket in Baharagora in September last.

Earlier, the police had arrested a lottery agent from Galudih in the Ghatsila sub-division in January, leading the racket to stop at Galudih and the adjoining Ghatsila townships, but it is still running at places like Mosaboni and Jadugora of the sub-division clandestinely.

The illegal lottery business is thriving in the region despite the ban. Illegal lottery is operated by a big lottery conglomerate that has interests in the northeastern states, Kolkata and Punjab and who were successfully running the business.

There are two ways in which the agents lure gullible gamblers. One is to write the last three digits of the lottery tickets and for that Rs 10 is charged per ticket and a person can take a maximum of 2000 tickets. If he writes correctly all the three digits and if he has taken 2000 tickets , he gets an amount of Rs 20 lakh for the 20,000 rupees he has spent. If he is writing only the last digit then he is charged Rs 10 for one ticket and can write a maximum of 5000 tickets. If he correctly writes the last digit, he will get 5 lakh rupees.

 “People who get 500 to 600 rupees per day spend the whole amount on such illegal tickets expecting that they will get the prize and on almost all occasions they end up on the losing side. This leads to excessive drinking and in extreme cases suicide and unless the local police takes stringent action, this will continue.”

A person who was once closely associated with this business said that the illegal lottery chain runs to top level contacts and powerful persons are behind the racket. The major lottery conglomerate is directly controlling a major part of the business and is operated through old lottery agents in the state.