‘Lottery King’ Santiago Martin’s company Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd gave the largest amount through electoral bonds to the Trinamool Congress, which encashed Rs 542 crore of its bonds, followed by the DMK (Rs 509 crore), YSRCP (Rs 154 crore), BJP (Rs 100 crore) and the Congress (Rs 50 crore).

Martin’s company gave a total of Rs 1,368 crore through electoral bonds to seven political parties in various states between April 2019 to January 2024. Future Gaming also gave Rs 100 crore to Prudent Electoral Trust which in turn gave 76 percent of its total donations to the BJP. 

Election Commission data published on March 21 further revealed that Future Gaming donated Rs 11 crore to the governing Sikkim Krantikari Morcha led by Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang and Rs 5 crore to the Sikkim Democratic Front. 

The complete details of donations through electoral bonds is known for the DMK, as the party had disclosed its donors to the Supreme Court in November 2023 in a sealed cover. In the case of most other parties, data only indicates the funds they got through the electoral bonds scheme since April 2019.

The lottery business is legal in 13 states in India including West Bengal, where the TMC is the party in power. It is banned in states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh where the DMK and YSRCP are in power.  

Martin’s connections with the DMK are well-known, especially after his music channel SS Music produced Ilaignan, M Karunanidhi's 75th movie as a scriptwriter, in 2011. He later funded a film project of Karunanidhi’s called Ponnar Shankar, which had been on the backburner for many years. But despite his proximity to the DMK’s first family, he failed to persuade them to lift the ban on lottery in Tamil Nadu when the party came to power in 2006. 

The YSRCP’s connections with Martin are unclear; lottery is banned in the state and Martin has had no overt business dealings with the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led party. 

Future Gaming was incorporated in December 1991 in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore. Martin is currently the director of 110 firms. 

This report is part of a collaborative project involving three news organisations – Newslaundry, Scroll, The News Minute – and several independent journalists.

Project Electoral Bond includes Aban Usmani, Anand Mangnale, Anisha Sheth, Anjana Meenakshi, Ayush Tiwari, Azeefa Fathima, Basant Kumar, Dhanya Rajendran, Jayashree Arunachalam, Joyal George, M Rajshekhar, Maria Teresa Raju, Nandini Chandrashekhar, Neel Madhav, Nikita Saxena, Parth MN, Pooja Prasanna, Prajwal Bhat, Prateek Goyal, Pratyush Deep, Ragamalika Karthikeyan, Raman Kirpal, Ravi Nair, Sachi Hegde, Shabbir Ahmed, Shivnarayan Rajpurohit, Siddhartha Mishra, Sumedha Mittal, Supriya Sharma, Sudipto Mondal, Tabassum Barnagarwala and Vaishnavi Rathore.

If you’re reading this story, you’re not seeing a single advertisement. That’s because Newslaundry powers ad-free journalism that’s truly in public interest. Support our work and subscribe today.