In a shocking and historical statement, the Port Minister of Goa, Michael Lobo, expressed his desire to legalize Matta Satka. He thought that the move would significantly help in improving Goa’s GST collection. He also reiterated the fact that making Satta legal would give a much-needed boost in providing formal employment to people involved in this practice.

 

Lobo also challenged the people opposed to the move for a debate on the same. He asked for a debate on the merits of the legalization of Matka. He said that there exists an illegal network for Satta Matka, and he wished to give it legal status. 

 


The reason behind the legalization

He asked the opposers why they did not think accepting bets was a valid employment option. He supported Matka agents by saying that their only source of earning was through accepting bets. They are anyway doing it illegally, so why can’t they do it legally? He then said the move would help boost the Goods and Services Tax collection too. 


Matka betting 

Satta Matka has been a very famous type of gambling in Mumbai and the Konkan region since the decade of 1960s. Similar to a lottery, Satta Matka takes place six days a week, and lucky numbers are called out three times during the day. The reason behind the popularity of the game is that you can place a bet for an amount as low as Re 1. 


In Goa alone, experts have estimated the valuation of the industry to be at thousands of crores. Michael Lobo isn’t the only minister who has called for the legalization of Matka gambling. Several other legislators and ministers in previous state governments have called for its legalization. However, you can already play Matka legally at Lottoland without any worries. 


Job opportunities arising from gambling

Michael Lobo explained that youth engaged in the Satta business could be eligible for formal jobs and employment if it is made legal. He even gave a number that around 20,000 youth would be the beneficiaries if such a move is made. 


He further clarified that the Matka gambling syndicate would fall in line since it would then be under the direct control of the government once legalized. He said that it would be a daily lottery, and the present scale of gambling operations would be reduced. Mr. Lobo believes that once Satta Matka is under government control, fewer people would be encouraged to play it, and it would not be as widespread as earlier. 


History of Satta Matka

We can trace the origin of Matka betting from the 1950s. In this era, many people used to place their bets on the opening and closing rates of cotton received by the Bombay Stock Exchange, far away from the New York Cotton Exchange. Unfortunately for the gamblers, the New York Cotton Exchange discontinued the practice in 1961. 


This motivated the punters to explore other ways of keeping the Matka business up and running. It was proposed that people could instead gamble on randomly generated numbers instead of the cotton prices. 


It was Ratan Khatri who proposed that they could simply write the numbers on pieces of paper and place them inside an earthen pot or Matka. Then they could draw the winning numbers from the pot and announce them. Satta Matka reached a peak of customers and gamblers in the 1980s and 1990s. However, there has been a change in the way these numbers are drawn now. Since the game is mostly played online now, the numbers are machine-generated. Yet, the term Matka is still associated with the game. 

How to play Matka

To start the game, you have to choose a set of three numbers from 0 to 9. Suppose you pick 5, 8, and 9. Then you have to add these numbers. In this case, the sum becomes 22. We can drop the first digit of the sum, leaving us with only 2. Our final selection looks something like this: 5,8,9*2. 


After that, the player has to choose another set of numbers in a similar fashion. Let us take 1, 3, and 5 this time. We get the sum equivalent to 9. We get the second set of numbers as follows: 1,3,5*9. 

 

Now we have our full selection i.e. 5,8,9*2 x 1,3,5*9. We can proceed to choose our bet now. You can choose different kinds of bets to your liking depending upon the numbers you have chosen. An example is a bet that can return 9x your betting amount if your first selection, i.e., 5, is correct. 

After you are done with placing your bets, there will be a draw of the winning numbers, and there will be no delay in the payout for the winning numbers.