- Advance tax
- Tax paid during the year rather than at filing time. Big winners usually owe surcharge and cess this way after TDS.
- Agent commission
- The share of a prize paid to the agent who sold the winning ticket. Kerala deducts 10% from the prize before tax.
- Ankada jugar
- “Figures gambling”: the pre-Independence habit of betting on cotton prices that came before matka. See history of matka.
- Annuity vs lump sum
- Some foreign lotteries let winners take a prize as yearly payments or a smaller one-off amount. Indian state lotteries pay a lump sum.
- Bumper lottery
- A special draw with a much larger first prize and dearer tickets, tied to a season or festival.
- Cess
- A 4% health and education charge on income tax plus surcharge.
- Chakshu
- A reporting facility on the government’s Sanchar Saathi portal for suspected fraud calls and messages, used when no money has been lost yet.
- Claim form
- The official form a winner submits with the original ticket and documents to receive a large prize.
- Combination
- A group of numbers where order doesn’t matter. “Pick 6 from 49” has 13,983,816 combinations.
- Draw code
- The letters and number identifying a particular draw, printed on the ticket and the result.
- Expected value
- The average amount a ticket pays back over many draws. For lotteries it is always below the ticket price.
- Gambler’s fallacy
- The mistaken belief that a random outcome is “due” because it hasn’t happened recently.
- Gazette
- The government’s official publication. Kerala publishes lottery results in its Gazette on the day of the draw.
- House edge
- The built-in margin an operator keeps on every bet, which guarantees players lose on average.
- Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998
- The central law under which a state government may organise its own lottery.
- Matka
- Literally an earthen pot. Also the name of an illegal numbers-betting game that began in 1960s Bombay.
- Matka King
- A nickname for the leader of a matka syndicate, most associated with Ratan Khatri.
- Online money game
- Any online game played for money or stakes. Banned in India by the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025.
- Public Gambling Act, 1867
- The colonial-era law against running or visiting a common gaming house, still in force in many states.
- Quick pick
- Numbers chosen at random by a machine instead of by the player. Odds are identical.
- Satta
- A general word for betting or speculation; used in India for illegal number betting such as matka.
- Series
- The letters printed before a ticket number. A winning ticket must match both series and number.
- Surcharge
- An extra charge on income tax for people with total income above ₹50 lakh: 10%, 15%, 25% or 37% (capped at 25% in the new regime).
- TDS
- Tax deducted at source. The payer keeps 30% of winnings above ₹10,000 and sends it to the government in your name.
- Tele-MANAS
- The Government of India’s free 24×7 mental health helpline, reachable on 14416 or 1-800-891-4416.
- Wheeling system
- Buying many combinations of a chosen set of numbers. It raises cost and covers more tickets but never changes the odds of a ticket.
- 1930
- India’s national cyber-fraud helpline. Call it as soon as money leaves your account.
- Welfare scheme (Karunya)
- A Kerala programme funded by lottery revenue that helps low-income patients with serious illness.