Gamble combat

Mohini Bhatnagar
11 April 2003

So far the Essel group has been monopolising the lucrative online lottery business. Now it has two serious contenders: the Modis and Essar

Mumbai: The Essel group's monopoly in online lottery games may soon come to an end as two companies — Modi Enterprises and Essar Group — are finalising their online lottery plans.

While the former is getting ready to launch online lottery across 13 Indian states, the Essar group is planning to extend its online lottery in three more states. At present Essar's lottery is present only in Nagaland.

Modi Enterprises is launching its lottery branded Sunshine India Lottery through its subsidiary, MWC Market Services Ltd, and has appointed Integrated Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd (ITSPL) as its distributors. The company's preparations to launch its lottery actually began two years ago with the appointment of distributors on a national scale through ITSPL and the roping in of international executives.

The company has appointed Sreekant Gupte, formerly with Marico, as chief executive officer of K K Modi Enterprises (lottery division). It has also roped in Tim Holley, chief executive officer of Camelot, which runs the UK National Lottery, and Alex Burstein, director, GITECH, another online lottery in the UK, to help it design games that is different from its competitors. Plans are afoot to launch Sunshine Lottery through a network of 8,600 online lottery retail terminals at various fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) outlets across 13 states in the country shortly.