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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
On 20 March, 1897, the Bengal Legislative Council introduced a bill calling for the specific banning of a practice called “rain gambling”.
Rain gambling, also known as Barsat ka Satta, was a form of speculation where people would place bets over future rainfall, i.e., the quantity and duration of rain during a window of time, when the monsoon would arrive, and how long it would last. This form of betting was especially popular with the Marwari community, who brought it with them from Rajasthan as they emigrated to various parts of India… including Bengal.
You’d think that betting on rainfall would be a random pastime activity, but it was anything but. In fact, it got so popular that the British colonial government got quite concerned, going so far as to even amend laws to ban the practice in Bombay (now Mumbai).
And now, Bengal was in the crosshairs. In 1894, Sir John Lambert, the Police Commissioner, noted that rain gambling was one of the major activities in the Burra Bazaar area of Calcutta (now Kolkata). Lambert writes that the practice caused traffic jams and obstructions of the streets, which were filled with gamblers. Betting houses sprung up all over the city. Although the Marwari community were the ones who originally started it, according to him, “others have been attracted, and now crowds of all races collect: Europeans, Arabs, East Indians, West Indians, Native Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muhammadans, Arabs, native females, and even children”.
And betting on the rain wasn’t just a leisure activity.
People took it really seriously.
There’s a website called Dharohar, an initiative by the Securities and Exchange Commission of India (SEBI) that chronicles the history of trading in India.
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Co-founder and CEO, Obvious Ventures
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