An undercover constable busted an illegal online casino running in the busy Anand Plaza shopping complex in East Delhi's Krishna Nagar market on Tuesday, police siad on Wednesday.
According to a police officer, privy to the case, he was asked to pay a minimum amount of Rs 1000 on the pretext of earning 36 times of the paid money.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Nupur Prasad said five people have been arrested and 9 video game consules have been recovered.
The five have been identified as Amit, caretaker, Sachin Kumar, Sachin Jain, Raj Kumar and Chander Dev.
Police said they have sent their teams to nab Sailesh Kumar Jaiswal, the owner of the two shops, who is still absconding. Police said they have recovered Rs 24,700 cash, three roller coasters, nine computers, including one server and three petty cash registers.
On Tuesday evening, around 7.30 pm, constable Pankaj went to the video game parlour. Pretending to be a decoy customer, he went inside the shops to check whether illegal activity was taking place in the online casino.
Once he got out of the shop, he signaled the police team which was waiting near the plaza. Around 8.30 pm, the police team raided the parlour and found four customers.
"On searching the parlour, the software of casino was found in one of the main computers and six other computers were connected to it to play casino," said Prasad.
Thirteen types of games were played in the shop — fun andar bahar, triple run, one target, bingo, fever joker bonus, golden wheel, giant jack, Keno, seven up and seven down, lucky and line, checkers and no hold. To play, customers had to pay Rs 1000 per game.
A case under Sections 3 and 4 Delhi Police Gambling Act at Krishna Nagar Police station. During sustained interrogation, the accused Amit disclosed that they used to give attractive offers to their customers to gamble through online Casino to earn more money.
The shopkeepers, who have been running garment shops in the East Krishna Nagar for the past 20 years, Amit appeared like any other shopkeepers. Talking to The Pioneer, Mayur Bhateja, a garment shopkeeper said, "Amit often came to us, asking for help in terms of asking him to provide phone number of chai wallah and other vendors who sold snacks. He mostly kept to himself,"
"The video game parlour, was operating in the two shops, shop number 6 and shop number 7, at the third floor under the supervision of one Amit. It appeared like any regular game parlour, however, it was only visited by elderly people throughout the day. In order to dodge the police, Amit opened and closed the two shops at the usual market timings, therefore, we never suspected that something illegal was taking place inside," said Suresh Gaur, owner of Fade Out, a garment shop, located close to the two shops.