Jaydev mody biography of donald
Jaydev Mody: The Measured Gambler
Image: Vikas Khot
Jaydev Mody on board the Deltin Royale, India’s largest casino ship
It is 2.30 am but in the Mandovi, the river that bisects Goa, the Deltin Royale is all bright lights and energy. India’s largest casino ship is bustling with every kind of punter, from honeymooning couples making eyes at each other over their roulette chips to boisterous groups of mostly male vacationers, who start with the slot machines but eventually give everything a shot. Opening Opening Zia and Jaydev Mody’s 45-year journey has been one of concrete agreements that have lasted a lifetime and genial disagreements that evaporate in a nano second. For instance, as we scout around for a suitable photo background in their spacious villa filled with art and antiques from around the world, Zia feels a particular painting that adorns the stairway would make for a great backdrop. Jaydev takes one look at the painting and then dismisses it with a wave of his hand. To which Zia responds with mock displeasure and then the two continue ascending the stairs, hand in hand. Ever since they began their respective careers, Zia’s intensity and level-headedness has been equally matched by Jaydev’s tenacity and commercial acumen. While Zia, who follows the Bahá’í faith, clearly needs no introduction in corporate India, Jaydev has a cultivated reclusiveness about him. Not many are aware of his passion for equines or fondness for Chinese and Thai cuisine or his outright admiration for Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece, The Godfather, having seen it more than 30 times; part one being his favorite. Zia herself has had to watch it a dozen times and during the conversation quips, “Jaydev knows the script 100% by heart, I know 35% but I don’t want to get to 40%.” Despite their hectic work schedules, the childhood sweethearts take short vacations whenever they can manage. Kenya is a favorite destination and the east African influence is evident through artifacts, business interests as well as through Nala, the name their children chose for one of their Labradors. When and where did you meet? What attracted you towards each other? Follow our WhatsApp channel Zia:Our fathers were friends, so we knew each other since we were kids. We lived in the same compound and that is how we ran into each other around 1969. I was 13 and he was 14. He was the pro “I love being in the business of uncertainty,” says Jaydev Mody, and without a dramatic pause or mysterious smile, finishes the sentence with, “like gambling”. The 58-year-old chairman of Delta Corp Ltd, one of the leading players in the gaming/gambling industry in the country, is matter of fact when he recounts his life story. Throughout that story, there aren’t any other intense pauses or moments when he would want to weigh in the significance of his statement. Not even when he mentions “retiring” at the age of 50, doing “nothing” for two years, before the lure of blackjack and others drew him back into the professional world. Mody, dressed in a casual shirt and trousers, pours me a large 10-year-old Lagavulin and for himself the smoky Laphroaig, one of his favourite malts. It’s a medium-sized cold room, his “den” on the third floor of the four-storeyed bungalow, near Mahatma Gandhi’s Mumbai residence in Gamdevi. Dark brown leather sofas, a red carpet, dark wooden ceiling, maroon curtains and low-lit lamps almost complete the picture. There are over a dozen horses in the room, in the shapes of lampshades, ashtrays and large chess pieces placed all around. Multiple photographs of Mody with his race horses take up an entire wall. Just a day earlier, Delta Corp had announced its second quarter results showing revenue of ₹ 145.3 crore. Its revenue from the core gaming business grew 58%, from ₹ 42.66 crore to ₹ 67.49 crore in the second quarter, which Mody says will be the percentage growth in the business over the next five years. “Which business has shown this kind of growth?” he says, “especially in the last two-three years when all businesses have gone through extremely difficult times with no light at the end of the tunnel. For instance, the total amount of gambling in cricket alone is larger than the gaming revenue in Las Vegas, US. So this is big, it’s huge.” When probed further about gambling as a socia
It takes a second look to spot the real gamblers, the high-rollers who have flown in simply to play: A steel mill owner engrossed at the blackjack table; the high-profile bodyguard of a Bollywood actor, here off-duty, with his family; the six Chinese women playing quietly with a mountain of chips piled high before them, determined to beat the house.
The ship, outfitted in ’70s décor, complete with glass chandeliers, is open all day every day of the year. The casino is spread over four levels, and regulars—identified by the colour of the wristbands they are given at the entrance—play in the far quieter Royale poker room on level three, India’s largest gaming room. Tourists are mostly confined to the first two floors, which house the casino’s basic facilities. A large crowd of young tourists throngs the entertainment zones that offer dining facilities and live music. In another hall, a soloist plinks a lonely melody on her keyboard.
This could be a regular day at the Deltin Royale. But the smiling staff seem to be on edge. That’s because Jaydev Mody, chairman of Delta Corp, the company that owns and operates the casino, has just stepped on board.
Deltin Royale’s casino manager Rajae Sarhan, a Palestinian by birth, shows us around the ship. He has been a part of India’s still-nascent legal gambling industry since its inception at the dawn of the millennium. He worked aboard Caravela, India’s f Jaydev Mody | How to get a great deal
Jaydev Mody: Gambler-turned-gaming entrepreneur & promoter of Delta Corp bets on casinos
Like on Indian beaches, sometimes guests do wade right in, wearing t-shirts, banyans or even long flowing nightgowns. For a five-star hotel, this isn’t a pretty sight. So, a staff member gently requests a guest to don swimwear, only to face the materteral retort: “Do you expect us to wear bikinis?”
Daman, a former Portuguese colony, actually has its own swimwear for women, easily available in the markets near Devka beach. Inspired by the salwar kurta, the innovative swimwear works well with the conservative clientele in the swimming pools of Daman’s hotels.
The beach town — often called a mini-Goa — has a church of Bom Jesus (Goa has the Basilica), and small Portuguesebuilt forts on either side of the Daman Ganga that flows through to the Arabian Sea. Devka is not much of a beach, largely rocky, with little sand — but has all the hotels around it.
Weekend evenings turn this heritage town into a quaint drinking joint preferred by the Gujarati folk and visitors from Mumbai.
Hard-drinking American comedian WC Fields once famously said: “I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted.”
Tourists to Daman have enough of the grog and, although ‘wild women’ will remain a fantasy at best, they will soon get a chance to spend their money (perhaps even more than half ) on Fields’ other not-so-trivial pursuit of gambling.
Daman, a mix of E