New Delhi:

Bollywood actor Vijay Varma recently revealed some exciting news about his latest project, ‘Matka King’. Directed by Nagraj Manjule, known for Sairat and Fandry, the web series is currently in production.

‘Matka King’ is about a real-life figure named Ratan Khatri, who was active in India between the 1960s and 1990s. Matka, a form of gambling, was immensely popular at the time, and the ‘Matka King’ was a prominent figure in this underworld.

Some facts about Ratan Khatri, aka, the ‘Matka King’:

1. Originally from a Sindhi family, Ratan Khatri migrated to India from Karachi, Pakistan, during the partition in 1947, according to PTI.

2. Ratan Khatri initially worked for Kalyanji Bhagat, who was known for operating the Worli Matka, a form of illegal gambling that originated in India. It involves betting on numbers. Later, Kalyanji Bhagat’s son, Suresh Bhagat, took over the operations.

3. Ratan Khatri eventually branched out on his own and established his own matka syndicate known as Ratan Matka. He operated primarily from Mumbai, establishing himself as an authoritative figure in the Satta market during the 1960s and 1970s. He reportedly attracted a wide range of clientele, including celebrities and dignitaries worldwide.

4. During the Emergency of 1975-77, Ratan Khatri was arrested and spent 19 months in jail due to his involvement in illegal matka gambling activities.

5. In the early 1990s, Ratan Khatri retired from the gambling business and lived a quieter life before he died in 2020.

Originally, matka gambling involved betting on the opening and closing rates of cotton from the New York Cotton Exchange to the Bombay Cotton Exchange. By the 1960s, this was replaced with methods like pulling slips from a matka (pot) to generate random numbers. Ratan Khatri became known for using playing cards instead of slips, which became a distinctive feature of his version of the game.

Source link: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/who-was-matka-king-the-inspiration-behind-the-new-vijay-verma-show-5889223