How Facebook upends statewide lottery bans

On the Tamil Nadu vs Kerala Lottery Guessing Group on Facebook, 28-year-old Vijay from Coimbatore goes by the name ‘Vijay Loki KL.’ He doles out the last three digits of the 6-digit Kerala lottery numbers on WhatsApp, guaranteeing a bumper prize. “I am an agent and I will help you win,” he says on the group, displaying his number and the picture of a Kerala lottery ticket.

Official version

The Kerala State Lotteries Department said they were aware of such groups on FB. “We are aware of such groups. We inform the cyber cell of the Kerala police as and when we come to know of a group,” says Anil Bhaskar, lottery publicity officer and public relations officer, Directorate of Lotteries, Government of Kerala.

The groups were proliferating and the directorate could not do anything directly without involving the police to curb them, he said.

“We have been urging the public not to fall prey to such fraudsters. Kerala lottery is run in a very transparent way and winning is a matter of luck,” Anil Bhaskar said. The directorate states in all its publicity material including pamphlets and bills that the public should not fall prey to false promises, he added.

Registered lottery agents in Kerala, who are the lottery retailers, told The Federal that the draw was done by the department in a transparent way and winning was luck-based.

The Kerala lottery has been a model to all other states for its transparent operation. The state set up its own lottery in 1967 and banned all private lotteries. But online lotteries started appearing and the state banned all internet/online and other-state lotteries in 2005.

The state government’s decision was prompted after hundreds of fly-by-night operators offered huge prizes and vanished without trace on the draw date. The All Kerala Online Lottery Dealers Association approached the Supreme Court but it rejected a batch of petitions saying the state government was well within its powers to do so. The court said the state government can ‘organise, conduct or promote’ a lottery. Importantly, the court said ‘online sales can lead to the exhaustion of all the savings of a naive buyer.’

Groups active

But Vijay seemed confident. “We have nothing to do with the Kerala government. We only take the last three digits of the number and guarantee you will win. But you need to pay an advance; ₹3,000 minimum,” he says, asking if one of our reporters was interested in playing. “The more you pay, the more likely we will leak all the numbers to you. ₹1 lakh is also okay,” he says, disconnecting the call abruptly.

Many victims

On the receiving end of many losses and few wins is 24-year-old Velu. “I am paying far less for data now, so I can go on Facebook every day and guess the lucky numbers,” he says, in a jubilant tone.

Velu has been playing for a year now, winning less and losing more. Velu lost ₹75,000 recently, but managed to win ₹25,000 in the last month. “It still won’t cover my losses, but I am proud that I won. Lottery gives me a rush.”

Stat groups

There are more innocuous groups on Facebook which actively try to rely on statistics. The groups look at the history of win and churn out ‘clues,’ like, a particular number-ending has had the most number of wins since a particular year or the most number of wins have been registered from a northern district in Kerala. (All stats pertain only to Kerala lotteries).

Ample hints

To state a case in point, an independent analytics source says, from June 2012, the most number of prizes (2143) above ₹1 lakh went to Palakkad, a northern district in Kerala. Close behind was Thrissur with 2,042 and Kottayam with 1,819. The most-repeated number combinations on winning tickets has been 0229, 53 times; 3560, 52 times; and 2199, 51 times. The analyst but has a disclaimer too: ticket buyers should not take a decision based on their stats

Circumventing bans

Tamil Nadu may have banned all lottery including from other states but people in the state are betting on Kerala’s lottery, online. Facebook groups such as Vijay Loki’s boast of 1,500 members, many of whom are buyers, and more than a hundred agents. The agents promise to leak lottery results hours before to buyers.

Scale of operation

At least 12 states across India have banned lottery as a vice. But these bans have been beaten by unscrupulous agents trading on lottery tickets of states such as Mizoram which have not banned the business and for whom lottery is a substantial revenue earner running into many thousands of crores of rupees. In the case of Kerala, however, the ban has been circumvented by the power of the Internet that makes short shrift of state and even national borders.

When one decides to compete in a lottery, the person sends a message to an agent whose number is found in one of the many Facebook groups. They are first asked to pay up an advance, a minimum of ₹5,000. The agents demand higher amounts as advance for leaking the right numbers several hours before the lottery is drawn.

An agent, when asked where the money comes from to run the group, says, “If you work in an IT company, you will get a salary. Now you only know it comes from the company, not the many intermediaries in between. Same here.”

Vijay estimates ₹30 lakh is paid out through these Facebook groups, adding these groups have been in operation in the last three years.