Click to play videoMumbai: Betting on a cricket match is no child’s play—it’s a complex three-tier process with big money at stake and experts handling every level of action.
The simplest form of betting involves putting money on which team will win or lose and how top cricketers will perform in a match. A player in good nick scoring a 50 will fetch standard odds but if it’s West Indies versus Zimbabwe, a bet on the Windies will not fetch much of a return.
The odds in a simple win-lose bet will fetch you just a few paise for every Rupee invested. If it’s a Kenya-Australia match, even the biggest bookie cannot get Kenya to beat the mighty Aussies. The stakes in this match would therefore be low.
At Level II, the stakes go higher and hundreds of crores may be bet per match. An influential bookie at this level uses his proximity to a player to get crucial bits of information, like who is in the team, who will open batting and who will be the fifth bowler.
Armed with tip-offs, the bookie can now offer tempting odds for things he is sure will not happen in a match. The Nagpur Police allege that West Indies player Marlon Samuels revealed team information to bookie Mukesh Kochar before a match on January 21.
Kishore Kumar, a former bettor, says getting information helps in deciding stakes. "Every 15th over, you have to bet the team will score 80 or 90 runs. Every ball, every boundary the situation changes. The odds change with every ball," says Kumar.
Level III of betting on cricket belong to the biggest bookies and perhaps the meanest of them. These bookies have links with the underworld and allegedly use inducements to manipulate a player’s performance, so that they can alter the result in a game.
A bookie, who didn’t want his name to be revealed, says the “inducements” could be “money, entertainment at beer bars or expensive gifts".
These inducements can go right to the top of cricket's cream. The careers of former captains Mohammad Azharuddin and Hansie Cronje were ruined after they got entangled in the web of bookies.
Reforms in players’ salaries and corporate sponsorships have made it difficult for bookies to influence players from teams like India, England and Australia. But players from smaller teams may still be hot targets for bookies.
(With inputs from Arunoday Mukharjee in New Delhi)
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