Police raid Mumbai online lottery centres
India rapidly becoming largest illegal online gambling centre
India is rapidly converting into the global centre of illegal gambling. As the country is perhaps the largest media centre services provider, with thousands of firms doing business the world over, it has been easy for many of these businesses to move into online and sports betting gambling as the industry becomes one of the largest betting countries after China.
As the seventh-largest country in South East Asia, India has 1.2 billion inhabitants and is considered the most populous democracy in the world. In 2017, the Indian economy was the world’s sixth largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity, with a buoyant economy following market-based economic reforms set up in in 1991.
At present legalized gambling is only permitted off shore in the state of Goa, but as media centres begin to diversify with illegal offers of online gambling on the side, the authorities have a major problem to solve and are beginning to crack down on such operations.
Last week, Police raided seven online lottery centres in central Mumbai, arresting 11 suspects for evading the Goods and Services Tax by issuing hand written tickets instead of printed ones. This is the first reported such action against the lottery centre owners, who have been avoiding state GST for a long time by issuing hand written tickets.
Police recovered 11 computers, hard disks, mobile phones and cash worth millions of rupees. The centres were giving tickets to various online lotteries, including Goa’s authorised “Lucky Four.”
