Apr 17, 2026 10:17pm IST
‘Matka King’ Review: Vijay Varma Series Lacks An Ace Up Its Sleeve
With its cards in the proverbial matka, Prime Video’s newest series “Matka King,” led by Vijay Varma and helmed by Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, appears to be the kind of cotton rags-to-silken-riches story that you would expect it to be. It’s set in 60s and 70s Bombay, with a stacked cast that includes Sai Tamhankar, Bhupendra Jadawat, Kritika Kamra, Siddharth Jadhav, Jamie Lever, Gulshan Grover and others.
And that’s good… for a starting point. But when the cards finally open, you want there to be something more; something that sets its luck apart from the other players in the game. Something that delivers a punch that we’ve come to expect from a Nagraj Manjule tale. But even as “Matka King” wins the smaller rounds, it falters in its bid for the grand prize.
Vijay Varma is Brij Bhatti, a common man working for a rich cotton trader, but also running his greedy boss Laalji Bhai’s gambling side hustle. At home, he has a pregnant wife, bills to pay and a younger brother with a penchant for trouble. It’s established early on that Bhatti is a man of ethics, with a generous heart and a disdain for Laalji Bhai’s way of running things.
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But even when circumstances and his boss’s indifference to his plight push him into a corner, Bhatti’s morality needle doesn’t budge. He decides to run his own ‘satta’ operation as a way out of his financial woes. But one that is played honestly. He reinvents the simple card game into a many-layered ‘matka,’ something the mill workers won’t just play for money but also for the thrill of it.
There’s a scene at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse, pitting Varma’s Bhatti and Grover’s Laalji Bhai against each other, thus launching Brij’s Matka era. A switch flips, and you feel this is where “Matka King”’s game will morph into 3D chess, too, just like Brij Bhatti’s does.
But what follows is a rather expected sequence of events that doesn’t challenge Brij or the audience enough. A steady rise riddled with hurdles. A betrayal from the brother (Bhupendra Jadawat) he considered useless, a disturbed family life and marriage under the weight of his infamy, a business partner-turned-mistress (Kritika Kamra) who temporarily fills the void but will never be enough. And a loyal friendship (Siddharth Jadhav) sacrificed at the altar of keeping the business alive. There are a few collaterals too, like Jamie Lever’s Vasudha, meant to be catalysts for Brij’s guilt.
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It all plays out in a sanitised way with Brij coming out on top, more often than he should. The guilt doesn’t cut deep until the very last episode. Every time the narrative tests him, Brij gets the hero treatment. Which is fair for flair, but have we forgotten that gambling is still an addiction that cannot be defended in black or white? The storytelling doesn’t glorify it, but it also holds itself back from challenging the flawed protagonist’s delusion about his righteousness.
Brij is all white; the shades of grey need to be written in darker ink. There’s one character capable of pulling that off, a journalist hot on Brij’s trail. But even he gets his claws clipped and guilt-tripped every time he tries to scratch out a critique.
“Matka King” does come with a full deck; Vijay Varma and Siddharth Jadhav are playing their cards right, and the rest of the cast puts their best forward. But this matka seems to be missing that one ace up its sleeve that would make it a winning hand. And this should’ve come from creator Nagraj Manjule, whose usual X factor seems conspicuously absent. It’s watchable, engaging even, but not the clear winner you hoped it would be.
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