Gambling racket operating across north India busted, five held

Five people of a gambling racket, allegedly spread across north India, have been arrested here, police said on Monday.

Kulwinder Singh, 50, Inderpal, 43, Pradeep Chopra, 39, and Sandeep Shegal, 41, were arrested on Saturday from a west Delhi house which was being used by the accused as their work station for operating the racket, police said.

Rajeev Anand, 39, was later picked up from Punjab on the information supplied by those arrested previously.

Police said Singh and Anand were the heads of the gambling racket which was being operated across north India including Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and some parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

"Three laptops with gambling software, 11 mobile phones with SIM cards and other incriminating material along with cash amount of Rs. 90 lakh (stake money) were recovered from the west Delhi house from where the miscreants were operating the racket," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Yadav said.

The officer said that Anand is involved in organised gambling for over 20 years and was previously involved in 12 cases of gambling and cheating in Punjab.

The officer said customers placed stake on particular numbers with the agents who charged 10 percent from them and sent these numbers to bigger agents popularly called Khaiwal.

"These Khaiwals further sent these numbers through email to main gambling operators known as Company. All this data is fed into software in a laptop, which provides details of profits on each number. It helps the administrator to choose a number which provides maximum benefit to Company and least to the customers.

"Selecting the number is sole discretion of its administrator and it is not a game by chance as widely perceived. The selected number is then declared as winner every day. Profit is equally divided between the Khaiwals and the Company. The customers, whose number is declared, are paid 100 times the stake money," the officer added