Millions change hands daily in illegal IPL bets

Betting worth tens of millions rupees is tak­ing place every day in Birgunj, an import­ant commercial hub in Nepal’s central plains, in relation to the ongoing Indian Pre­mier League (IPL) cricket tournament. The ille­gal betting takes place openly during each and every IPL match. Bettors include not just young cricket fans, but also industrialists, smugglers, politicians and contractors. In fact, the betting market is so vibrant that offices have been set up secretly to carry out the illicit trade. According to a businessman from Adarshanagar who bets regularly on IPL matches, people have rented rooms in his neighborhood and other parts of the town and turned them into betting joints.

 

A person whose job is to take bets and pay out money to winners is known as a book­maker, or a bookie for short. In Birgunj, they are referred to as dalals (middle-men). From what I could gather from betters who regularly place big bets with these bookmakers, the main betting ring operates out of Jaipur, Rajasthan. This ring has apparently hired six local bookies in Birgunj.

 

The modus operandi

 

The bookies in Birgunj deliver the informa­tion about the wager amount to the agents in Jaipur via their phones. The bookies are also responsible for paying out money to the win­ners and sending cash deposited by the losers to Jaipur. For this job, the bookies receive a cer­tain percentage cut as commission. Here they pocket 20 percent of the total stake.

 

For every IPL match, a bookie makes Rs 1.5 to 2 million. A person gets to become a bookie only after he deposits a minimum of 2 to 2.5 mil­lion Indian rupees with the Jaipur’s betting ring.

 

Every bookie in Birgunj collects wagers up to Rs 5 million for a single match. Bets are placed on different categories—the winning team, the runs scored in a particular over, total runs and wickets taken by individual players, etc.

 

“Only if the bookies have your number saved in their mobile will they take your call. And they don’t entertain bets lower than Rs 10,000. I’d placed a bet of Rs 20,000 on the opening match in favor of the Mumbai Indians, but I lost,” says one cricket fan—and an IPL bettor—from Murli-Sripur. But members of large business-in­dustrial houses and smugglers are known to bet up to Rs 2 million on a single match.

 

Uninformed police

 

Despite the scale of the daily transactions, the police is apparently unaware of the illegal betting. DSP Rajan Limbu, spokesperson for Parsa Police, pleaded ignorance about the betting scene in Birgunj. “It’s the first time I’m hearing about IPL betting. We’ll now investigate the matter,” says Limbu.

 

DSP Limbu’s profession of ignorance not­withstanding, the police had arrested five members of a betting ring with a large sum of money from Adarshanagar in Birgunj during the 2015 IPL.