Raipur and Durg Police have issued a lookout notice for twelve people including Saurabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, two mastermind behind running illegal betting services countrywide using Mahadev Book betting app.

Ever since online betting has been brought under non-bailable offences, the police have doubled their efforts in cracking down gangs that are using Mahadev book to take illegal bets and siphon money out of the country.

Chandrakar and Uppal are the two names that are brought up regularly in these cases. These two started out as local bookies running small juice and tyre shops. They slowly grew their business across the state and when the police started to take a note, they left the country and are allegedly operating from the UAE.

As of now, Chandrakar and Uppal are operating their illegal betting network from Dubai. Although, the government has banned their illegal betting website, it is still being operated through mirror domains.

These people are using stolen Aadhaar cards and IDs to open dummy accounts that are used to move money earned from duping people out of the country. In the past few months, police have made several arrests for people operating Mahadev Book in India.

The police recently also uncovered an online betting ring worth thousands of crores spanning across several states. The people operating these betting rings are trained in Dubai and sent back to India to keep the illegal betting business running.

Advisory issued against advertising of betting, gambling platforms

Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel has also ordered strict actions against people connected to illegal betting and gambling. The state recently passed Chhattisgarh Gambling Prohibition Act 2022, under which all forms of gambling are prohibited.

According to the new bill, people can be fined up to Rs 5 lakh and three years of imprisonment for people running online betting/gambling, with punishment increasing to Rs 10 lakh in fine and seven years of jail time. People advertising the betting service will also be fined up to three years of imprisonment.

Another thing to note is that the bill only prohibits game of chance. Companies running skill games like poker, rummy, fantasy sports, etc. are not included in the bill.