Archery Betting: Welcome to the World of the Teer Lottery

Archery betting is a thing. It's called Teer and is a traditional lottery game based on archery which is played in certain parts of India. Namely, Shillong which is the capital city of Meghalaya, a hilly state in Northern India. The word "teer" literally means, "arrow".

Introduction: Archery Betting

Though cricket is the countries national sport, the sport of archery lottery came about thanks to the Khasi tribe of Meghalaya. They have performed archery as a traditional sport for centuries. Folk law says that when the English army attacked Meghlaya in the 20th century, the Indians made use of the arrows used against them. After years of practice, many Indians became very proficient at the sport, which in turn led to the formation of the archery betting lottery. You can find Teer in the  cities of Shillong, Juwai and Khanapara. For the rest of the country, here's a list of online lottery sites in India.

Teer Lottery

Interestingly enough, Teer is now the mainstream livelihood of the population of Shillong. The game employs over 10,000 people and there are 1500 counters in the city of Shillong alone. Another 5,000 work throughout the state at sales kiosks for the sale of Teer tickets. These sellers can earn between 350 - 500 rupees per day. Punters buy different numbers (0-99) from these licensed counters which are to be found scattered all over the city. It should be pointed out that Teer is illegal outside of Meghalaya and only residents of the state can play. To that end, take a look at these online lottery sites in India. Another lottery in India you can play anywhere is the Lotter. And here are some other things you can gamble on. The lottery is played 6 days each week.

Archery Betting: The Gameplay

Archery is central to the game. Here's how it works. In Shillong, 50 archers take up their places on a field. They stand at 50m from the target. In other cities it's between 15.21 and 30.48 meters. They each shoot 30 arrows, with a grand total often between 700 and 2,000 per session. Oh...and the target measures up to 127cm in circumference. Each archer earns 300 rupees for the days work. There is also a time limit of 5 minutes per archer. Like Alexandra Longova having a busy day at the Olympics!

Archery Betting: The Scoring

Basically it's a count of the total number of arrows that hit the target. The scorer then takes the last two digits as the winning number. So, if for example the total score was 743, then the winning ticket number would be 43. Every day there are two sessions. One starts at  30.30 pm and the other at 4.30 pm with the results announced half an hour later.

Buy Your Ticket

First off, choose your lucky number. Then find one of the official counters and pay them whatever amount you're comfortable with. After taking your details, they'll issue you a ticket. If you are lucky enough to win, then go back to the same kiosk and present your winning ticket. Easy. If you can't make the trip to Megahalaya, then check out the Lotter. There is a huge industry basing itself around predicting the correct numbers for archery betting. And it's also led to the belief that dreams play a central role. For example, if you were to dream that you saw a man in your dream, well, that would signify the number 6. A woman is number 5. A man and a woman together is number 13...and so on.