Ratan Khatri “Matka King” died at the age of 88

Ratan Khatri, better known as Matka King, died at the age of 88 in his home in Central Mumbai. Ratan Khatri ran a gambling network from the mid-60s to the mid-90s and transacted crores of rupees in betting from thousands of punters across the country. He set up his illegal matka gambling business by betting on fluctuations in cotton rates transmitted from the New York Cotton Exchange.

Khatri was from a Sindhi family and migrated to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan as a teenager during partition in 1947. During the 1975–77 Emergency in India, Khatri spent 19 months in jail. He retired from the gambling business in 1995 following police action on his business.

According to Ratan Khatri, his close friends asked him to start a syndicate. He first worked with Kalyanji Bhagat who started ‘Worli Matka’ in 1961. He later participated and Khatri started ‘Ratan Matka’. Khatri said that people had faith in his system and knew that this business was illegal, but he operated it with integrity.