Indians love cricket, you
bet By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Over the next several weeks,
cricket-crazy Indians will be glued to a dazzling
extravaganza, the World Cup, which is under way in
the West Indies. Equally frenzied will be the
public gambling, termed locally as satta,
that takes place on the sly as it has been banned
by the government.
If one goes by the
assessments of the police, illegal sport-betting
amounts to well over US$5 billion a year in India.
Some police officials say the annual volume could
even be as high as $40 billion, depending on the
state of the economy, especially the
stock exchange and
real-estate prices, which can generate massive
windfall gains for potential punters.
Betting volumes during a crucial one-day
international cricket match, one that could
involve India and Pakistan, can exceed $250
million. Betting estimates for the World Cup,
which will see 51 matches played, is more than $4
billion.
In the subcontinent (including
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and now an emerging
Bangladesh), cricket is a mania that borders on
religious fervor.
Strangely, Indian and
Pakistani punters end up backing each other if one
of the teams is knocked out. That is, if India
loses, Indians tend to back Pakistan against a
team such as Australia, which is considered an
outsider.
Thus, despite a police
crackdown, satta remains one of the most
organized gaming forums in India. If there is a
lull in the world of cricket, bets may be placed
on election results, even for an international
high-profile one such as in the United States, or
the arrival date of the monsoons as officially
announced. According to reports, more than Rs4
billion ($90 million) in bets were placed on
predictions for the recent Punjab elections.
The means have become high-tech with the
help of computers, mobile telephones and the
Internet, with top underworld dons such as Dawood
Ibrahim and others from Mumbai heavily involved in
the trade during various times.
Though the
Reserve Bank of India has blocked credit-card
payments on websites that it believes are fronts
for gambling, many illegal Internet forums
continue to be operated by prominent bookies that
act as intermediaries and are just a search engine
away. Punters set up an account with these sites,
and instruct them to make bets on their behalf for
a fee. Illegal hawala money-transferring
channels are also used.
Traditionally,
satta is at its busiest in India during
cricket matches, where bets are placed on every
aspect of the game: which team will win, whether a
batsman will score a century, who will win the
toss, whether a wicket will fall on the first
ball, etc.
The odds are mercurial and
followed as closely as the stock markets.
Favorite bets on star cricketers are a
first-ball dismissal, a half-century as well as a
century, with further limits being set on the
number of balls faced.
Such is the size of
the industry that there have been allegations - as
well as confessions by top cricketers - of players
having been paid huge amounts to cater to the
dictates of a bet.
The former captain of
South Africa, Hansie Cronje, is one famous
culprit. He confessed to being paid thousands of
dollars by bookies. Allegations have been made
against such top world cricketers as Ajay Jadeja
Mohammed Azharrudin, a former India team captain,
Salim Malik of Pakistan and Shane Warne of
Australia, the world record holder in test wickets
taken.
Though Indians would like to
believe that their team will emerge victorious,
according to Ladbrokes, the well-known UK-based
betting agency, Australia is at the top on the
betting meter (2/1), followed closely by South
Africa (4/1), then Sri Lanka (7/1) and England
priced at 8/1 for the current World Cup. India is
trailing at joint fourth with England. Usually,
Indian bookies follow the pattern of international
bookmakers.
India unexpectedly won the
World Cup in 1983 and reached the final in 2003.
In a country starved of sports heroes, Indian fans
only expect the best performance.
New
methods are continually devised to persuade
clients to place bets, as well as to circumvent
the police. With mobile phones and e-mails under
the threat of being monitored, some operators
offer big clients "free home delivery" service.
Errand boys fan out with specially designed chits
of paper with a list of the various bets on offer.
Each client has a code known orally to the
operator. The client then ticks off his odds
according to his preference, or places fresh bets
if he wants to.
"This process involves
more cost, but since there are no electronic
records, it is completely foolproof," said a
police official. The other method of placing
bets is through short messaging service (SMS) over
a mobile phone. "However, people want to be
completely safe and do not like to use even SMS as
it leaves the record of the cell number," the
official said.
One breed of people very
apprehensive about cricket is politicians at
election time. Attendance at rallies simply
dwindles, although this problem is alleviated by
the installation of huge TV screens at venues to
keep voters interested. A few years back a very
high-profile nationwide tour by senior Bharatiya
Janata Party leader L K Advani was widely ignored
because of a cricket tournament. Advani's
rath (a specially turned-out mobile van
with state-of-the-art comforts and technology) was
then fitted with TV screens that telecast the
matches live, which drew the crowds.
This
year, the crucial state elections in Uttar Pradesh
next month are going to overlap with the 2007
World Cup. All political parties are ensuring that
mobile vans in which leaders travel to the
hinterland are fitted with TV screens. Venues are
likewise being equipped with live radio commentary
or TV.
According to estimates, India loses
more than 2% of its gross domestic product, or
more than $10 billion, to the bulk of the working
population watching cricket on TV.
India
boasts the world's third-biggest cable and
satellite subscriber base, which stands at close
to 70 million homes, up from 42 million in 2003
when the previous World Cup took place. Cricket
updates on mobile phones that number more than 170
million users will be another big forum.
Indian media buyers estimate rates for a
30-second ad spot during the World Cup range from
Rs125,000 to Rs300,000 ($2,820-$6,770). This
compares to the top television program, a quiz
show, hosted by top Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan.
The Indian advertising market stands around $4
billion a year.
According to estimates,
Sony Corp, which owns the broadcast rights in
India, is set to earn more than $100 million in
advertising revenue. Sony reportedly paid more
than Rs2.5 billion to purchase the rights from the
International Cricket Council in 2002.
It
is going to be one big party in India and the rest
of the subcontinent over the next month and a
half.
Siddharth Srivastava is a
New Delhi-based journalist.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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