Matka Gambling Picture

The Kalyan Matka gambling was started by Kalyanji Bhagat, a farmer from Gujarat, in 1962 and it ran for all days of the week. Another Matka gambling, New Worli Matka, was started by the Rattan Khatri in 1964 with slight modifications to the rules of the game. Khatri’s Matka ran only five days a week, from Monday to Friday. Amongst many other games that Indians love to play, Matka gambling is one. However, the lottery is now available online at Lottoland, and it is day by day, gaining much-deserved popularity. That does not mean that Matka gambling is out of the picture now.

N-Road in elite Bistupur is paradoxically Jamshedpur's dark underbelly, where hooch is sold and gambling is routine a stone's throw from the local police station.

That this half-a-kilometre stretch is a den of illegal activities came to the fore after a 28-year-old bank intern was found murdered in an under-construction building along the road last week.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that Ankush Thakurta, a native of Rourkela, Odisha, was killed over a drunken brawl with employees of a beer bar, which was open beyond designated hours. Also, the beer bar in question is allegedly an umbrella for several unauthorised hooch outlets in the vicinity, according to local vendors.

'People who come to buy vegetables here think N-Road is the safest stretch of Bistupur, with a thana within a kilometre and routine patrolling. Very few know what goes on here after sundown. Hookah bars mushroom to offer ganja (marijuana) and matka (organised gambling with links to cities like Calcutta, Mumbai and Nagpur) is run openly. Roadside eateries sell hooch; sometimes even foreign liquor at a premium. Licensed hotels help them for a cut,' said a potato vendor, not willing to be named.

Don't the police know? 'Of course, they do. It happens right under their nose. In fact, local fruit vendors had complained against gamblers and tipplers who create nuisance, but police do nothing,' another vegetable seller on N-Road told this correspondent on the condition of anonymity.

Sources said matka is played using special cards through a local agent who has links with the main operator in Mumbai or Calcutta. The minimum investment is Rs 100. There are two forms of the game - one that draws a profit of nine times and another promises a big bonanza of 100 times of the invested amount.

Assistant excise commissioner, East Singhbhum, Manoj Kumar conceded that several eateries along a 200-metre stretch of N-Road served liquor despite not being authorised to do so.

'Following a tip-off, we had conducted raids in February. The owner of one such eatery, Shakti Hotel, was caught red-handed and sent to jail. It is difficult to say if the grey market for booze continues to boom on N-Road,' Kumar said, but expressed his ignorance about ganja dens in the area. 'We shall, however, keep tabs and bust gangs involved in illegal activities.'

DSP (crime control) Sudhir Kumar did not respond to calls. Bistupur thana OC Srineewash claimed they had stopped matka rounds on N-Road two months ago. 'It may have resumed. We will find out,' he said.

Matka Gambling Photo

How can security of N-Road be beefed up? Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com

New Delhi: Matka or Pot Gambling has its roots dates back to pre independence era. It was previosly known as Ankada Jugar alias Figures gambling.

Matka Gambling Pictures

In its early days, bets were placed by punters on opening and closing rates of cotton traded on New York wholesale cotton market. The winning number recieve 9 times the sum he betted. Rates on Cotton were used to be quoted in three digits by punters.
But a time came when the rates for open and close turned out to be zero, so the bookies faced heavy loses. They started gambling on cotton rates of Mumbai stock exchange at Siwri.