Keeping a Lottery Office
Chapter Forty-Seven
Syllabus topic 1, "Offences under Indian Penal Code"
Pages 228 to 230 of 802
In one line
Running a lottery is an offence unless the State runs it or has authorised it, and advertising one is a separate offence punishable with a fine.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: by section 297(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 whoever keeps any office or place for the purpose of drawing any lottery, not being a State lottery or a lottery authorised by the State Government, is punished with imprisonment up to six months, or fine, or both.
Why the offence is drawn this way
The objection is not to gambling as such. A State lottery is lawful, and so is one the State Government authorises. What is punished is a private person running one.
So the section is a licensing provision with a criminal sanction. Its real work is to reserve the activity to the State, and the mischief it addresses is the fraud and the harm that unregulated lotteries produced.
The advertising limb exists because a lottery lives on publicity. Sub-section (2) reaches the person who publishes the proposal, whether or not he keeps the office.
The provision itself
Section 297(1). Keeping any office or place for the purpose of drawing any lottery, not being a State lottery or a lottery authorised by the State Government: imprisonment of either description up to six months, or fine, or both.
Section 297(2). Publishing any proposal to pay any sum, or to deliver any goods, or to do or forbear from doing anything for the benefit of any person, on any event or contingency relative or applicable to the drawing of any ticket, lot, number or figure in any such lottery: fine up to five thousand rupees.
Broken down
"Keeps any office or place." The offence attaches to the keeping of premises for the purpose, not to buying a ticket. A person who takes part in a lottery commits no offence under this section.
"For the purpose of drawing any lottery." The draw is the defining act. A scheme with no element of chance in the allocation of prizes is not a lottery.
The two exceptions are on the face of the section. A State lottery, and a lottery authorised by the State Government. Because the second depends on State authorisation, the lawfulness of the same scheme differs from State to State.
Sub-section (2) needs no office. Publishing the proposal is enough, and the words "in any such lottery" tie it back to a lottery within sub-section (1), so advertising a State lottery is not an offence.
A worked example
Sanjay runs a shop in a town in Maharashtra and, in a back room, operates a weekly draw in which customers buy numbered slips and one number is drawn for a cash prize. The State Government has authorised no such lottery.
Keeping a Lottery Office
Which provision? Section 297(1). He keeps a place for the purpose of drawing a lottery which is neither a State lottery nor one authorised by the State Government. The maximum is six months, or fine, or both.
The customers. They commit no offence under the section, which punishes the keeper of the office or place.
He puts up posters announcing the prize. Sub-section (2) applies: publishing a proposal to pay a sum on a contingency applicable to the drawing of a ticket, lot, number or figure in such a lottery, punishable with a fine up to five thousand rupees.
Change one fact. Suppose the State Government has authorised the draw under a State lottery statute. Neither sub-section applies, because the lottery is one authorised by the State Government and sub-section (2) is confined to "any such lottery".
Change another. Suppose the prizes are awarded on the results of a test of skill rather than by drawing a number. There is no drawing of a ticket, lot, number or figure, so section 297 is not engaged. Whether the scheme is gambling at all is governed by State legislation.
What it does NOT mean
It does not punish playing. Only the keeping of the office or place, and the publishing of the proposal.
It does not make every prize scheme a lottery. The section requires the drawing of a ticket, lot, number or figure.
It does not settle the legality of gambling. Betting and gambling are State subjects, and the substantive regulation is in State legislation, of which this section is a small penal supplement.
Limits and criticism
The punishment is trivial for the activity it addresses. Six months and an unspecified fine, and five thousand rupees for advertising, are no restraint on an operation of any size.
The section is largely spent. Lotteries are regulated by the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 and by State law, and online schemes of the same character are regulated, if at all, under information technology and gaming legislation rather than under this section.
"Authorised by the State Government" produces a patchwork. Identical conduct is an offence in one State and lawful in the next, which is a consequence of the constitutional division of the subject rather than a defect in the drafting.
Quick revision
Section 297(1). Keeping an office or place for drawing a lottery, not being a State lottery or one authorised by the State Government: six months, or fine, or both.
Section 297(2). Publishing a proposal to pay a sum, deliver goods, or do or forbear from doing anything, on a contingency applicable to the drawing of a ticket, lot, number or figure in such a lottery: fine up to five thousand rupees.
Keeping a Lottery Office
Who is not liable. The person who buys a ticket or takes part.
The exceptions. A State lottery; a lottery authorised by the State Government.
Where the real law is. The Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 and State legislation, betting and gambling being a State subject.
Test yourself
1. Who commits the offence in section 297(1)? The person who keeps an office or place for the purpose of drawing a lottery which is neither a State lottery nor one authorised by the State Government.
2. Is buying a lottery ticket an offence under the section? No. The section punishes keeping the office or place, and publishing the proposal.
3. What does section 297(2) punish, and with what? Publishing a proposal to pay a sum, deliver goods, or do or forbear from doing anything for a person's benefit on an event or contingency applicable to the drawing of a ticket, lot, number or figure in such a lottery, punishable with a fine which may extend to five thousand rupees.
4. Which lotteries are outside the section? A State lottery, and a lottery authorised by the State Government.
5. Why does the lawfulness of the same scheme differ across India? Because the second exception depends on authorisation by the State Government, and because betting and gambling are a State subject, so the substantive regulation is State legislation.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.