Online lottery fraud has come to stay as a big menace to the gullible people, who are carried away by the lure of big money. They are simply not aware that without investing in lottery scheme, how can they win any lottery! It’s just not possible. Yet people fall prey to such allurements, which are in the domain of spam and phishing. State police and governments launch public awareness campaign, on regular frequencies, against such frauds. Online lottery frauds are borderless crimes, tackling which is, indeed, a very challenging task for Indian law enforcing agencies. It often comes a cropper.
Nevertheless, an enquiry in the Union Ministries of Home Affairs, Communications & Information Technology, reveals that there is no data available on online lottery fraud. However, the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998, lays down the conditions for the State Governments to organize, conduct or promote a lottery.
The Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 does not make specific mention about online lotteries, yet according to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice, the definition of lottery under the Act is wide enough to cover all forms of lotteries including online lotteries in which a lottery is organized.
The Government of India also has notified the Lotteries (Regulation) Rules, 2010 for organizing proper lottery or online lottery or both subject to conditions specified in the Act and Rules, in consultation with the Ministry of Law and Justice, Ministry of Finance and State Governments.
As a follow up to that, the Government of India has issued a model agreement on December 28, 2011 to be signed between State Governments and the agents to strengthen the States in regulating the lottery business in all the States and Union Territories.
With such regulations in force, lottery frauds can be checked in the country, while it is worrying for all of us that online borderless lottery frauds, happening with impunity, are far from being tackled because of lack of country’s jurisdiction problems in dealing with such fraudulent cases!
M.Y.Siddiqui
