Long before electoral bonds made him famous, Santiago Martin was in the crosshairs of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala cops
“Every story has two sides… Santiago Martin is one of the most generous persons to step up for good causes,” goes a note on Martin Charitable Trust's website
When All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo J Jayalalithaa became Tamil Nadu chief minister for the second time in 2001, she was keen to pull the plug on the financial sources of her rival, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party that had implicated her in a number of corruption cases.

One of her prime targets was a businessman named Santiago Martin, who was well-known as the Coimbatore-based lottery king. Martin, profiting from a lack of a state-operated lottery facility in Tamil Nadu, sold lottery tickets issued by Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Tripura, where the lottery is legal.
More than two decades on, the king still wears the crown. Data on the sale of electoral bonds released by the Election Commission of India on March 14 showed that the highest sum spent on buying bonds ( ₹1,368 crore) was by a company called Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited — run by Martin.
He became the single largest political donor in the country after going on an electoral bond-buying spree in 2019. The same year, the Union home ministry had issued a warning nd alerted eight lottery-running states about the alleged "frauds" and "irregularities" linked to Martin's companies led by the flagship Future Gaming.
The lottery king wasn’t just caught in the crosshairs of Jayalalithaa, the now-deceased former Tamil Nadu CM. In 2019, his company was the subject of an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation. In May that year, Income Tax sleuths raided 70 premises owned by Martin and seized ₹40 lakh in cash through coordinated raids in these 70 locations—22 in Coimbatore, 10 in Chennai, 18 in Kolkata, five in Mumbai, three in Delhi, and two each in Hyderabad, Guwahati, Siliguri, Gangtok, Ranchi, and Ludhiana. In March 2022, the ED attached ₹411 crore in the bank accounts of Future Gaming and other companies including Martin Group of Companies, Martin Enterprises and Martin Foundation.
In May 2023, raids were carried out in his Coimbatore and Chennai premises for alleged violations of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Officials familiar with the case said that the ED probe is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge sheet that alleged the company fraudulently sold lotteries from the government of Sikkim in Kerala. The ED later filed a prosecution complaint against Future Gaming before the PMLA Court, Kolkata, on September 9, 2023.
How it began
Back in 2001, Martin, not only operated the lottery business empire of the northeastern states on their behalf, but also ensured a grassroots-level distribution network for the tickets in lottery-crazy Tamil Nadu. Along with normal lottery tickets, Martin also allegedly sold fake tickets with a face value of five or ten rupees, targeting low-income people, the CBI chargesheet filed in Kerala high court stated.
Jayalalithaa, who wanted to go after DMK’s then supremo Karunanidhi and his financial sources, declared that her primary task after assuming power was to protect people from the clutches of “lottery robbers”. At the time, Tamil Nadu was also witnessing several cases of deaths by suicide by people from lower-income families who had lost money in the lottery.
Martin’s business empire faced its first major challenge in 2003 when Jayalalithaa'’s government issued an order banning all lotteries conducted, organised and promoted in the state, including those promoted by the state governments across India.
Martin approached the Supreme Court saying that the ban was a violation of his right to work, the AIADMK state government argued that Tamil Nadu, too, had operated a lottery business once as part of a noble cause of earning money for social security purposes, but that the Karunanidhi-led DMK regime allowed private players into the trade, and that defeated the very purpose of the government-controlled lucky draws. The court said that the right to sell lottery tickets would neither be a fundamental right nor a right under Article 301.
However, Martin turned the setback into an opportunity, and ventured into neighbouring Karnataka and Kerala.
Till 2007, Martin controlled the entire lottery business in Karnataka, and his engagements there ended only when the local police Crime Investigation Department busted his racket and initiated criminal proceedings against him there. That year, the Tamil Nadu police busted a lottery scam involving Martin's company for the first time. Soon complaints from lottery buyers in Ramanagara near Bengaluru about lottery tickets with double digit numbers began to emerge. In such tickets, prizes were made available as soon as a buyer uncovered a water marked number on the ticket --- however, nobody won any significant amount. The CBI eventually took over the case, but a charge sheet remains to be filed.
Martin finds fertile ground in God’s own country
In Kerala, Martin found fertile land for his business empire to thrive, which by then had expanded into operating lotteries on behalf of other states like Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh.
Martin also simultaneously expanded his business by operating lotteries on behalf of the neighbouring countries of Bhutan and Nepal, by selling the tickets across India in general and Kerala in particular, resulting in a huge decline for the Kerala state lottery, the pioneer among state lotteries that enjoyed high credibility.
It was the second EMS Namboodiripad-led Communist government of Kerala which started lotteries in India in 1969 to collect additional revenue for poverty eradication and other social security initiatives. It was the brainchild of the then Kerala finance minister PK Kunju, and many other states soon followed the successful model.
At present, lotteries are legal in 13 states, including those mentioned above, and state-owned lotteries are modes of revenue for the state exchequer.
Kerala's former lottery director and retired civil service officer K Suresh Kumar said the infamous lottery king minted a fortune in Kerala for about a decade between 2003 and 2013. Kumar waged a long battle against Martin's illegal business empire with the support of veteran Marxists and former Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan.
In 2007, Martin donated ₹2 crore to the CPI(M)’s Malayalam mouthpiece, even as CPI(M) chief minister Achuthanandan was waging a protracted battle against his lottery empire with the help of Suresh Kumar. Party leaders Pinarayi Vijayan, the present CM, and EP Jayarajan, the general manager of Desabhimani called the payment an advance on advertising expenses, but Desabhimani had to return the money in the face of public resistance.
In Kerala, Martin faces 32 cases of lottery fraud, but the state government led by a party to which he has made generous donations, seems to have made little effort to put him behind bars. Kumar cited a 2014 CBI charge sheet that stated that of the Sikkim lottery tickets worth ₹4,752 crore that were sold in Kerala by Martin's companies between 2008 and 2010, only ₹142.93 crore was paid to the Sikkim government. Martin stands accused of a ₹4,500-crore scam pulled off in three years. The case is still pending in the Kerala HC.
Coimbatore days
The electoral bonds controversy has brought Martin back into the public eye, but trade and industry sources in Coimbatore say they are clueless about where the lottery king is operating his controversial business empire from. For over a decade, Martin has not been a visible face in Coimbatore. However, till a decade ago, he was the philanthropical face of Coimbatore, who financially supported all major initiatives promoting health care and education among the local poor.
"Every story has two sides. It is often said that both sides must be heard before we judge! Santiago Martin may have mostly been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, but only a few are aware that he is one of the most generous persons known to step up for good causes. Santiago Martin has time and again given his all to promote equality and provide a better quality of life to the citizens of India. He is also one of the highest individual income tax-payers of our country," the website of Martin Charitable Trust stated.
Martin was born and brought up in Myanmar in a low-income family and migrated to Coimbatore, where he began selling lottery tickets. He started the Martin Lottery Agencies Ltd in Coimbatore in 1988, and soon, it gained a monopoly in the field, destroying all major rivals. In the process, he made friends across the political power circles in the country, and perhaps the only exception was Jayalalithaa.
Martin was eventually arrested in the land-grabbing cases that Jayalalithaa slapped on him; he was detained in Vellore prison in 2012. The provisions of the Goonda Act were slapped on him, and a prime Coimbatore property in his wife, Leema Rose’s name, was attached. He still faces trial in all these cases.
Martin’s business has expanded into various sectors other than lottery, including construction, real estate, textiles, and hospitality. When Karunanidhi became the CM for the second time between 2006 and 2011, Martin produced two movies based on stories penned by the CM. DMK insiders confirm that the ₹20 crore Tamil film Ilaignan, written by Karunanidhi, found no producers until Martin picked it up.
Martin’s wife is now part of a regional political outfit in Tamil Nadu, the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK). She shared the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an election campaign five years ago. His son Charles Jose Martin is a local BJP leader in Coimbatore, while his son-in-law Adhav Arjun is with the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi. This Ambedkarite party is part of the Congress-led INDIA alliance, for whom Adhav Arjun is said to design the election strategy.
Far from indicating ideological sympathies, Martin’s family’s dalliance with politics appears to be guided by the classic investor’s logic: spread your bets.
Despite repeated attempts, Martin was not available for comments.
