Interview with a cricket bookie (two, actually)

In India, betting on cricket is illegal.

Perhaps, it is time for Indian lawmakers to consider making it legal for people to decide if they want to bet on a cricket match or not.

Meanwhile, gambling syndicates backed by underworld funds that have the blessings of certain political circles ensure that a bookie is only a phone call away when it comes to placing a cricket bet.

That is why I found it unfair that nobody seems to have asked the bookies what they thought of the ongoing match-fixing scandal afflicting the Pakistan-England series.

So, I did.

I tracked down two major bookies. A major bookie is one who can take a hit of up to approximately Dh240,000,000. In one match.

I got through to one here in the Gulf and one in the epicenter of illegal world cricket betting – Mumbai.

To get through to the Indian bookie I had to use the crime reporter of one of India’s biggest selling tabloids.

In India, if you want to do some serious betting, you will be screened and provided with a phone and SIM.

All you need for a bookie in the Gulf is a strong recommendation.

Neither the bookie in India nor the Gulfie was impressed by the ‘fixing’ going on in world cricket.

Both were confident that fixing the outcome of a match, did not take place anymore (yes, they understood the implication of the word ‘anymore’ at the end of that sentence).

Fixing a session, they both agreed, took place regularly.

A cricket match is broken up into sessions. A session can be a set of 15 overs, or between lunch and tea of a Test, or just five overs of a T20.

The bookie will release a score he thinks will be made in that session. You bet above or below it.

Ninety per cent of betting in the cricket world takes place like this.

So, if someone comes in betting on a no-ball, you know, either the punk is feeling lucky, or the ball is fixed.

Nobody will take a big bet on that.

An over here, a few no-balls there, is only meant to impress. To show that a player has been tapped.

Whoever wanted to complicate his/her life and had access to players, could make a killing in a single game.

But, and here’s the crucial thing, the total amount of money turned over in a single cricket Test match can be as high as Rs 1billion (Dh 80,000,000). So the money made on a few no balls, if at all, is chump change, in the end.

In fact, the Indian bookie said the latest scandal had not affected betting at all.

All bookies were ‘sitting’ on the Pakistan-England series, despite continued allegations of fixing (or perhaps, because of it).

So, while these bookies claimed they really do prefer a fair contest and punters staking their lives on their favourite player – or even better still, their judgement of the game, the fact is, they were pretty blasé about operating under the assumption that every other session in a game was fixed.

Which only begs the question: just how messed up is cricket today?

PS: My final question to the bookies was: will the India-Australia series be free of any sort of fixing?

Their answer: don’t bet on it.

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