The electoral bonds data was published on the official website of the Election Commission of India on Thursday, March 14, and the list showed that a company named Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR was the firm that donated the most amount of money to political parties.

The electoral bonds data was provided to the ECI by the State Bank of India, which was ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. According to the now-publicly available data, Coimbatore-based Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd donated ₹1,368 crore to political parties through electoral bonds.

The list published by ECI shows that around 1300 companies purchased electoral bonds worth over ₹12,000 crore in five years, and Future Gaming is the only company to exceed the ₹1,000 crore mark.

Future Gaming and Hotel Services: All you need to know

Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR was founded by Santiago Martin, deemed as the Lottery King of India, in 1991. The company was founded in Tamil Nadu, but after the ban of lottery in the state, Martin moved most of his business to Kerala and Karnataka.

Future Gaming currently operates in 13 Indian states where the lottery is still legal – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim, and West Bengal. In Nagaland and Sikkim.

The company is the sole distributor of ‘Dear Lottery’. Future Gaming operates in south India via its subsidiary Martin Karnataka, and in northeast through its firm Martin Sikkim Lottery.

Founder Santiago Martin is the President of the All India Federation of Lottery Trade and Allied Industries. His company Future Gaming has a workforce of over 1000 employees.

Despite being one of the biggest lottery companies in India, Future Gaming has had multiple allegations posed against it by the Enforcement Directorate. The ED has alleged that the firm has been illegally diverting lottery ticket sales proceeds to gifts and incentives, reported PTI.

Further, the Enforcement Directorate in its investigation said that Future Gaming illegally claimed around ₹400 crore between 2014 and 2017, reported PTI. ED also conducted searches on the premises of Santiago Martin’s son-in-law in Tamil Nadu, linked to a money laundering case.

Further, Martin himself has been questioned by the ED as part of a separate money laundering case against him and others launched by the CBI.