Cuttack, April 27: Police have arrested two persons from Dolamundai for running an online gaming racket through a web portal.

The police identified the gambler duo as Suryakanta Das of Haripur and Ashok Kumar Ojha of Mangalabag. The duo used to operate through an online lottery portal at Dolamundai.

The racket involved a number game, an illegal lottery scheme where players are offered to pick digits - 0 to 9 - with those that are randomly drawn periodically. The duo monitored the results of the online lottery scheme through the downloaded application and used to run a hand-written game. Accordingly, they offered to pay the players, who picked up numbers from 0 to 9 digits.

Investigations revealed that Suryakanta and Ashok had been running the show for the past two months.

The police said the duo had collected from the players at least Rs 5.50 paisa for every number before every lottery result that came in 15 minutes interval. They received the numbers from players written on a paper. If the number picked by a player matched with the result, the duo used to pay him nine times the amount. The game used to take place round the clock with lottery results being declared online every 15 minutes.

"Acting on a tip-off, a special quad raided the bylane behind Binayak Sweet Stall at Dolamundai Chhak around 7pm last night. While the two gamblers were taken into custody, seven players were also picked up from the spot," deputy commissioner of police (Cuttack) Sanjeev Arora said today.

"During the raid, Rs 23,600 in cash, one laptop, one dongle, four mobile phones, one calculator, three number boards and 33 number sheets were seized," Arora said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that some players picked up numbers and were prepared to put in multiples of Rs 5.50 paisa per number in the hope of getting back more money. In the process, the racket collected thousands of rupees from the players in a single day. Many people were reportedly cheated.

The police registered cases under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and the Orissa Prevention of Gaming Act, 1955, against the duo.

Online lotteries are not permitted in Odisha, a senior police official said.