New Delhi, Dec. 6 -- Through the 1960s, every evening at 9pm, in one of the seamier pockets of Mumbai, a man in a crisp white kurta would shuffle a fresh deck of cards. With theatrical precision, he would select three. Within minutes, these three numbers would be relayed across Mumbai's teeming chawls, to the bazaars of Gujarat over crackling trunk lines, and to the shadowy wagering halls of London, Dubai, and Tehran.

In the aftermath of this nightly, illegal lottery called matka, a handful of fortunes were created, but many more lives were quietly and brutally ruined.

At the centre of this sprawling, illegal economy sat Ratan Khatri, a figure of curious understatement. A Sindhi refugee, who had arrived in the Maximum City with nothing ...