Death has been stalking Madhya Pradesh's poor gamblers ever since the Guwahati high court allowed the reintroduction of lotteries in October 1998 after a gap of six years.

Like many others, Baburao's elder brother Mahadev, a police constable, has been praying for a reintroduction of the ban through another court order. A petition on the continuation of the Royal Bhutan government lottery in Madhya Pradesh comes up for final hearing tomorrow in Bhopal (January 5).Badekar, who used to draw a monthly salary of Rs 2,000 at a tyre remoulding factory, had sunk Rs 31,500 in a gamble on the Bhutan government's "single-digit" lottery that was specially designed for Madhya Pradesh. The single-digit lottery gives lottery addicts a one-in-10 chance of getting a prize since thewinners are decided by the last digit of the lottery ticket number and not the entire number.

With fifteen draws being held everyday between 12 and 2 in the afternoon all seven days of the week, lotteries are big crowdpullers. Since October 11, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Indore have drawn eager gamblers from neighbouring states, all in pursuit of financial nirvana by a favourable turn of the fortune wheel. As one senior politician puts it: "The lottery has become the strongest addiction for the masses. People have been selling property and mortgaging gold to play the gamble. Drugs and alcohol cannot match the attraction (of the Bhutan lottery)." Better odds rather than big money are the real draw. The prize money is not that fat. For instance, the first prize is pegged at Rs 1,000 and the second prize at Rs 200, Rs 100 and Rs 50 (depending on the prices of the ticket, which vary between Rs 22 and Rs 5.50 each). The major contributing factor to the craze is the number of second prizes in each draw which at timescould add up to over one lakh winners. There is a guaranteed winner for every 10 tickets sold since the prizes are decided on the last digit of the six-digit lottery ticket.

"The single-digit prize plays the trick as thousands of people every hour buy tickets hoping it will not be difficult to match a single digit... Once they start playing, it turns out to be a game of no return... If they win, the greed drives them deeper into the quagmire and if they lose, frustrations take over, goading them to play yet another round," said a lottery ticket-seller.

The state government has been fighting the lottery menace on a war-footing. It has banned the sale of lottery tickets at every nook and cranny of the state capital and instead allocated special sites for lottery bazaars which have turned out to be virtual killing fields. Bhopal's district collector Iqbal Singh Bains removed vendors from street corners as they were leading to public nuisance under section 133(1)(a) of the CrPC.

Till December 19, the daylottery ticket vendors were shifted to specified sites, traffic was chaotic in Bhopal and accidents were the order of the day as the roads were chock-a-block with vendors and buyers. The drama has now shifted to the "melas" where lakhs of people blow their hard-earned money by betting on one digit of their lottery tickets every afternoon.

Despite the increasing number of suicides and people bankrupting themselves in lotteries, the state government is finding it difficult to fight the menace as 75,000-and-odd people earn their daily bread selling tickets. Says DP Goyal, president of the MP Lottery Dealers Association: "The brahmins and thakurs do not get jobs in Madhya Pradesh, thanks to the state's reservation policy. You will find the largest number of educated unemployed youth here. Over 75,000 people earn between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 every day selling lottery tickets at the retail level. What will the government gain by banning the lottery? Can it ensure jobs for them?"

Goyal, who runs the state'slargest circulated Hindi afternoon paper Dainik Amrit Darshan, demands that the state government should ban the sale of liquor and tobacco instead of taking on the lottery business. "The government itself should be in the lottery business and earn revenue," Goyal feels.

Amrit Darshan's circulation has more than trebled-from 4,000 to 14,000-over the last three months. "Ours is the only newspaper which publishes the authentic results of all the 15 draws every day. I have kept people in Delhi who send the lottery results every hour over the telephone and by three in the afternoon the paper hits the newsstand complete with all results. The prize money is paid out by the retailers themselves after checking Amrit Darshan," says chief editor Goyal. On top of it, the paper also grabs the advertisements of lottery organisers.

Madhya Pradesh had banned the selling of lottery tickets on November 18, 1992. The then chief minister, Sundarlal Patwa, clamped the ban without issuing any warning, throwing over one lakhpeople out of "employment". Besides, Rs 5 crore worth of prize money was locked in following the sudden action of the state government which triggered a series of court cases at different high courts in the country. In August last year, a Guwahati high court ruling allowed the sale of the lottery tickets of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur in Madhya Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh government challenged it and within a fortnight banned the sale of lottery tickets of these states as the sale was not in conformity with an April 21, 1994, Supreme Court order.

Subsequently, on September 21, the stay on the ban on the sale of Bhutan state lottery was lifted and a new chapter in "state-sponsored" gambling opened on October 11 when the actual sale of single-digit lotteries started. As daily lotteries are not permitted by the court, the organisers have devised a novel way of playing a series throughout the week which conforms to the weekly pattern and at the same time can be played daily. For instance, the Surajseries plays an "express" lottery on Sunday, "super" on Monday, "delux" on Tuesday, "gold" on Wednesday, "silver" on Thursday, "royal" on Friday and "mail" on Saturday. The same pattern is followed for Moti, Jyoti, Kiran, Venus and the other 10 series of weekly draws.

It has been a protracted legal battle punctuated by rising public outcry. Charges and counter-charges have been traded and senior IAS officers transferred while the number of suicides have kept on rising and psychiatrists are busy diagnosing "financial stress" and "impulse control disorder".

The Youth Congress activists looted lottery shops and burnt thousands of tickets in Indore on December 19. The Bastar Chamber of Commerce has written to Chief Minister Digvijay Singh demanding an immediate ban on the Bhutan lotteries. The citizens of Jagdalpur district in Chattisgarh region have petitioned the SDO's court demanding a ban on the lottery business under section 133 of the CrPC. The Raipur police have so far taken action against 68 lotteryticket vendors following complaints of public nuisance, traffic problem and gambling. Gwalior's collector Anil Kumar Jain was also prompt in taking steps under sections 133 and 142 of the CrPC to check public disorder against the mushrooming menace of lottery shops.

Madhya Pradesh's commissioner-cum-director of state lotteries MS Murthy-who allowed the sale of Arunachal Pradesh lottery tickets in the last week of October allegedly without consulting the government-was summarily transferred to the tribal welfare department and a fresh ban was clamped on the Arunachal Pradesh lotteries in Madhya Pradesh.

As far as the Bhutan lottery goes, initially the stay on the ban was lifted till November 25. Subsequently, the relaxation was extended to December 26 and again to January 5. As the day of final judgment approaches, fortune-seekers from Allahabad, Patna and Delhi are checking into the smaller hotels in Bhopal, Jabbalpur and Indore to bet their last few pennies. While the social activist groups are raisingslogans against the menace, the state administration is leaving no stone unturned to combat the "legalised gambling" which may turn out to be a political timebomb for the Digvijay Singh government. If the high court ruling goes against the state, the Madhya Pradesh police will end up sending many more gamblers for post-mortems as the wheel of fortune has no remorse in crushing its hapless victims.