In the 1960s, the system was replaced with other ways of generating random numbers, including pulling slips from a large earthenware pot known as a matka, or dealing with playing cards.
In 1961, the New York Cotton Exchange stopped the practice, which caused the punters to look for alternative ways to keep the matka business alive.
A Sindhi migrant from Karachi, Pakistan, Ratan Khatri introduced the idea of declaring opening and closing rates of imaginary products and playing cards.
Ratan Khatri then introduced the New Worli matka in 1964, with slight modifications to the rules of the game with odds that were more favourable to the public.
He arrived as a migrant in Bombay in 1941 and initially did odd jobs such as masala ferriwala (spice seller) to managing a grocery store.
In the 1960s, when Kalyanji Bhagat was running a grocery shop in Worli, he began the first rudimentary form of matka gambling by accepting bets based on the opening and closing rates of cotton traded on the New York wholesale market.
[6] Ratan Khatri, known as the original Matka King, from the early 1960s to mid-1990s controlled a nationwide illegal gambling network with international connections which involved several lakh punters and dealt with crores of rupees.
Khatri's matka syndicate started in the bustling business area of Dhanji Street in Mumbadevi where idlers used to wager on the daily trickle of the fluctuating cotton rates from the New York market.
Due to a row over a winning number plus the New York market's five-day week schedule, compulsive betters began looking for alternatives.
In the early 1990s, he retired from the gambling business and was living near Tardeo; however, he still continued to visit the Mahalaxmi Racecourse to bet on his favourite horses.