Sikkim:online lotteries
Supreme Court Whip

NEW DELHI: In a big jolt to the online lottery industry, worth Rs 2,000 crore a year, the Supreme Court on Friday cautioned state-run lotteries
against breaching the law that restricts draws to one per week.

Some north-eastern states rake in huge revenue by outsourcing these online lotteries which have a turnover of around Rs 40 crore per week, the most popular being the Sikkim Super Lotto.

The Super Lotto was targeted in the apex court as petitioner Bibhash Karmakar alleged that frequent draws were attracting more and more youngsters, opening the route for their financial ruin.

West Bengal counsel Tara Chand Sharma virtually agreed with the petitioner's charge that the Sikkim government-run online lottery was conducting a number of draws per day. A Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices B S Chauhan and K S Radhakrishanan then asked, "Is it not restricted to one draw per week under the Lotteries Regulation Act, 1998?"

Counsel for Sikkim government, senior advocate A Mariarputham, said the PIL had generally argued against lotteries and had never alleged anything against online lotteries. "I will get back to the court with the response of the state government on the fresh allegations," he said.

However, the Bench said if the state government was doing anything contrary to the law, then it must stop forthwith. If the petitioner's allegations were true that the online lotteries were announcing draws every hour, then it must stop, it said.

If there were a few stories of people hitting the jackpot, there were a lot more stories of financial ruin because of addiction to online lotteries, the petitioner said and requested the apex court to completely ban the lottery trade, which at worth around Rs 50,000 crore, including the paper variety.

Section 4(h) of Lottery Regulation Act, 1998 provides: "No lottery shall have more than one draw in a week." In addition, Section 4(j) stipulates that "the number of bumper draws of a lottery shall not be more than six in a calendar year".

The apex court asked the state governments to respond within a fortnight and posted further hearing on December 14.