Satta King History: A Timeline From Cotton Rates to 2026

The history of Satta King is really two stories. The first one, about matka in Bombay (now Mumbai), is well reported in the press. The second, how Delhi-NCR games like Gali and Desawar began, was never written down. This page keeps the two apart and says clearly where the record ends. For what the games are today, start with our main guide, what is Satta King.

We mark claims that rest on a single source with words like "reportedly" or "according to". Stories that only appear on result sites are left out or labelled as stories.

History of Satta King at a glance

In short: betting on cotton rates in 1950s Bombay led to matka in the early 1960s. Similar games later spread to North India, police pressure grew, and the trade moved online, where it was banned in 2026.

Where does the word "satta" come from?

Satta (सट्टा) first meant a trade deal, not a bet. The Platts dictionary of 1884 gives its meaning as a business deal, a contract or a market. The betting sense seems to have grown later out of this trading language.

That fits the rest of the story, because the earliest documented satta was betting on commodity prices. The word matka (मटका) simply means a large earthen pot.

1950s: betting on cotton rates in Bombay

The documented history begins with cotton. According to DNA, Business Today and PTI, gamblers in 1950s Bombay bet on the cotton prices recorded at the start and end of each trading day. Those figures reportedly reached the Bombay Cotton Exchange by teleprinter from the New York Cotton Exchange.

DNA and Business Today say this practice was stopped in 1961, while some other accounts say 1962. Either way, the people taking bets needed a new source of numbers.

1960s: Kalyanji Bhagat, Ratan Khatri and the birth of matka

Two men from this period are named in almost every account. Kalyanji Bhagat, reportedly a trader in Worli, started Worli Matka. PTI gives 1962 as the year matka began.

Ratan Khatri was a teenager when his Sindhi family left Karachi for Bombay during Partition in 1947. PTI and Zee News say he was working with Bhagat when Worli Matka started and soon set up a rival game, some time in the early 1960s. Sources disagree on the exact year.

The draw method gave the game its name. Numbers were reportedly written on slips of paper, put in a matka and drawn out. Playing cards later replaced the pot, but the game kept its name.

Newspapers gave Khatri the title "Matka King", and PTI reported his death in Mumbai on 9 May 2020, at 88. To see how a matka draw differs from the two-digit games of North India, read Satta Matka vs Satta King.

1960s to 1990s: mill workers, peak years and police crackdowns

Matka grew fast and then ran into the police. PTI says it was popular across Bombay society in the 1960s. DNA reports that textile mill workers were the main players, so bookies gathered near the mills in central Bombay.

Khatri was reportedly jailed during the Emergency (1975 to 1977), though his PTI obituary does not mention this. Reports of the money involved at the peak differ widely, so we do not repeat a figure here.

The decisive blow came in the 1990s. Zee News says Khatri ran his business until a Mumbai Police crackdown in that decade. DNA says the crackdown after 1995 hurt the trade badly. According to DNA, the city had over 2,000 large and mid-sized bookies before 1995 but under 300 by 2013.

How did Satta King spread to Delhi-NCR?

The honest answer is that nobody has documented it. We found no news archive, court record or government source that says when the North Indian games began or who started them. In 2025 NPG News, a Hindi news site, pointed out that because the games are illegal, nobody kept an official record of their past.

What we do know is that satta in Old Delhi has long been linked to the trading world. Outlook described satta brokers working next to commodity traders in Fatehpuri, though that report was about betting on cricket and other events, not number games.

The games are reportedly tied to Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. NPG News calls Desawar (Disawar, Dishawar, दिसावर) the oldest of them, but it is the only source we found for that claim. Its result comes early in the morning, around 05:15 AM, and you can see every record since 2021 on the Desawar record chart. The Gali record chart shows results declared late at night, around 11:55 PM.

Faridabad (Faridabaad) and Ghaziabad (Gaziabad, गाज़ियाबाद) carry the names of NCR cities, and their full records are on the Faridabad chart and the Ghaziabad chart.

Gali (गली) means a lane, which is why a common story places its start in some Old Delhi lane. We could not find any source to back that up. Our guides on what Gali and Desawar mean and on Satta King game names explain what is known about each name.

How did "Satta King" become the name of the game?

Today people use "Satta King" as an umbrella term for the North Indian two-digit games and the charts that record them. Result sites often claim the phrase first described the person who won on a given day, but no reliable source supports that.

News reports use "king" differently: it labels the person running the racket. Khatri was the "Matka King", and in 2025 The Tribune reported the arrest of a man "popularly known as the 'Satta King' of Delhi". For other terms you will meet on result pages, see our glossary of satta terms.

2000s to 2020s: the move online

Over time, results and betting moved to the internet. Business Today wrote in 2021 that matka had shifted online over the years, to websites and apps. Result boards, WhatsApp groups and apps followed.

The government's response grew step by step. In June 2022 the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting advised media not to carry ads for online betting platforms. In March 2026 the government blocked about 300 more gambling and betting sites and apps. News On AIR, the public broadcaster, reported that the action also covered "satta and matka gambling networks".

The Online Gaming Act 2025 and where things stand today

Online satta is now banned across India. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 received Presidential assent on 22 August 2025. It bans offering, advertising or helping with payments for any online money game, whether the game depends on skill or on chance.

The Act did not take effect straight away. The government notified it on 22 April 2026, and the Act and its Rules came into force on 1 May 2026. You may see 1 October 2025 quoted elsewhere; that was an earlier planned date, not the actual start.

Several petitions against the Act are still before the Supreme Court, and as of October 2026 no stay or interim relief had been granted.

Offline satta is still a matter for the states. Under the Constitution, states make the laws on betting and gambling, and Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh each treat number betting as illegal gambling. Our law guide, is Satta King legal in India, explains each law in plain words.

What this history means for record charts

The record charts on this site are an archive, not part of the history above. They show results as they were declared each day, starting from 2021. Older years, such as the Gali chart 2021, are listed in our old results archive. To understand the rows, columns and symbols, read how to read a record chart.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by state and change often.

This guide is for information only. A record chart is history, not a prediction. Follow the law of your state. 18+ only. Disclaimer · Editorial policy