Vegas11

A retired employee of the Indian Air Force, Tej Gurung now spends his days at the archery shooting ground in the city of Shillong, in northeast India. The 80-year-old grandfather goes there to play teer, the only legal form of gambling in Meghalaya state. But this isn’t like betting on a normal sport. Wagers in teer are based on the world of dreams. The game works like this: Squatting in a semi-circle with their bows, 20 or so archers engage in a 10-minute firing frenzy, trying to hit a bundle of straw about 50 meters (164 feet) away from them as many times of possible. Players bet on how many arrows will end up in the bale, choosing a number between 0 and 99 which represents the last two digits of the total number to find their mark. For example, if 453 arrows hit the bundle, everyone who chose 53 wins a payout. It’s a game of chance, but it is guided by the belief that the winning numbers appear in the dreams of players, who use a local system to translate images into numbers. “A corpse, doctor and a person wearing a police uniform would all indicate the number 9,” explains Loknath Khannal, a Nepali local who has been selling tickets at a Teer counter for 30 years. A dog or a cow would mean the number 4, he adds. Gurung says he has been most lucky when being guided by his dreams, recalling a bet he placed on 12 after that number came to him in his sleep. He put on 5,000 rupees ($70) at various counters around town because most limited bets to 1,000 rupees ($14). “I played a single number 12 on the first round and won,” he said. “I don’t remember how much I made in total, but for a 500 rupee bet, you win 40,000 rupees. So you can only estimate how much.” No one knows exactly how the ancient sport of archery evolved into a lottery, but it’s so popular that people in neighboring states Vegas11 are dialing in bets and pocketing payouts.

India Vegas11 Modern form of gambling

Last December, the Meghalaya government made an announcement that sent shockwaves through the Teer community. It had decided to relaunch the state lottery, which stopped operating in 2005. Meghalaya is one among 13 states in India where the Supreme Court allows legal lotteries to be conducted as per an order in 2015. “Re-introduction of state lottery will be the last nail into the coffin for Shillong Teer,” one teer ticket seller told local media. While some bookies reportedly fear that the State Lottery could divert people’s loose change away from Teer, others dismiss such apprehension. “Teer is like an addiction so people can’t stop playing,” said one Shillong-based bookie. When the Indian government demonitized 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee notes overnight in November 2016, Teer – like many small, cash-reliant businesses and cottage industries – was badly hit. Yet even demonitization did not deter locals from playing the game. “Those who used to play for Rs. 5000 came down to Rs. 500 a day,” the bookie adds. For many, Teer is more than a gamble: it’s a way of keeping a connection to their roots, especially for those in the Jaintia Hills, many of whom have retained their indigenous religion, Niam Tre, or converted back to it from Christianity. “Christian evangelists have tried to veer us away from this game, saying that gambling is a sin,” says Pasah, who runs a teer ticket counter. Vegas11 “But for us, it is a way of keeping in touch with our own culture.” Makepeace Sitlhou is a journalist based in Guwahati, India and a 2019 National Foundation for India fellow.