ED attaches assets worth Rs 409.92 crore

The Enforcement Directorate attached movable assets worth Rs 409.92 crore belonging to Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Ltd on April 2, 2022, as part of a money laundering probe into an alleged lottery scam¹. The company, registered in Coimbatore in December 1991 by Santiago Martin, is a major lottery distributor and was later identified as the single biggest donor to political parties through electoral bonds⁴.

The probe began in early 2019, when the ED launched a money laundering investigation alleging that the company and its sub-distributors had "criminally conspired" to illegally retain unsold lottery tickets in Sikkim and claim top prizes on them, gaining money to the tune of Rs 910 crore⁴. The agency attached assets worth over Rs 250 crore in July 2019¹. Further attachments followed: Rs 173 crore in July 2022 and Rs 457 crore in May 2023⁴. In May 2023, the ED also searched Martin's residence in Chennai and the company's business premises in Coimbatore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act².

Five days after the April 2022 attachment, on April 7, 2022, Future Gaming bought Rs 100 crore in electoral bonds, described as one of its largest single-date transactions¹. The company purchased bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore between 2019 and 2024, the highest of any donor in data released by the Election Commission of India on Thursday, 14 March⁴. The Indian Express reported that the figure was Rs 1,300 crore between 2019 and 2024¹. The Hindu reported that of the Rs 1,368 crore in bonds, 50 percent were bought before the ED searches and 50 percent after².

The Home Ministry's CS (Centre-State) Division wrote to eight lottery-running states on September 23, 2019, naming West Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab, and citing complaints of "serious allegations" against Martin and his firms, including unaccounted income of more than Rs 1,000 crore from manipulation of prize-winning tickets¹. The ministry also said the MHA banned Martin's Sikkim State Lottery in Kerala¹.

Martin was arrested in Tamil Nadu in August 2011 over an alleged land grab case, according to The Quint⁴. NDTV reported he was arrested in 2012 and detained in Vellore prison³. The sources give different years for this arrest. In October 2023, the Income Tax department raided his properties in Coimbatore in a parallel probe⁴.

What it means for players

Lotteries are the product at the center of this case. The allegations concern unsold Sikkim lottery tickets and prize claims, and the Home Ministry's 2019 letter to states cited tickets that were not serially numbered and were sold by binding a particular number in bundles, which the ministry said violated the Lotteries (Regulation) Rules of 2010¹. For anyone buying lottery tickets in India, that describes the kind of paperwork and numbering that regulators treat as a red flag. The states named in the ministry's warning were West Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab¹, and the MHA banned the Sikkim State Lottery in Kerala¹. Buyers in those markets are dealing with a distributor whose permits and conduct have been challenged by central and state authorities. The company also has interests in online gaming and casinos, alongside lottery, real estate, hospitality and other sectors⁴. Details of how the ED case affects individual ticket holders, prize claims or refunds have not been reported.

What happens next

The sources do not report a hearing date, a charge sheet deadline or any scheduled next step in the ED case. The electoral bond data was released following a Supreme Court directive¹, and the sources state that the two sets of data released by the Election Commission do not establish who donated to which party⁴.