Betting on World Cup picks up in India

BOMBAY, India, March 6 AP - While India hoped to book passage to the cricket World Cup semi-final in its match against Kenya, bookies back home also were gearing up for the game - crouched inside cars and huddled in vacant buildings.

Betting is banned in India, except at race courses in a few cities, but Indians are wild about cricket and many can't help but wager despite a police crackdown. Some 35 bookmakers were arrested in Bombay and 24 in India's capital New Delhi last week.

News reports say some 40 billion rupees were bet on last week's India-Pakistan match and the stakes may rise as the World Cup semi-finals approach.

Punters were itching to bet on whether India's star batsman Sachin Tendulkar would score a century against Kenya, how many Australians Sri Lanka's ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan would nail, or how the prolific Australian batsman Michael Bevan would fare in Super Six matches the same day.

"There has been an unprecedented hike in betting since the World Cup began. People have lost fortunes or made fortunes in the same evening," said Sridhar Vagal, Bombay's joint police commissioner.

Bombay bookies, who had earlier relegated India to fourth place, revised the odds after the exit of South Africa, Pakistan, the West Indies and England.

Australia remained the favourite. The bookies were giving betters only 1 rupee for every 0.80 rupees they bet on the defending champions to win the World Cup.

Police recovered 10 mobile phones and four laptop computers from one car during a raid last week. But the laptops had access codes police found hard to crack.

The police don't get any information, and the raids just disrupt business, said one bookie, who runs a real estate agency and spoke on condition of anonymity.

And the punishment is light. Most bookies arrested in last week's raids were out on bail after paying a fine of 1,000 rupees.

Although match-fixing remains a concern, police have found no recent evidence.

"Some of the big bookies in Bombay are linked to dons in Dubai and Karachi who fancy themselves as matchfixers," said Vagal, "but of late we have not found anything."

Police believe self-exiled mob boss Dawood Ibrahim, who tops India's most wanted list, is the biggest player in the Indian betting racket.

The big bookies monitor competitors' phone lines, foreign weather and become experts on the nature of the pitch, police say.

"I bet on if rain will stop play, if Sachin (Tendulkar) will make 50 or 100. The high in India is on these roving odds," said Ravi Tripathi, who also likes to put money down on horse racing.

"The big punters just have an open line with the bookie that stays open right through the match. The odds keep fluctuating - they change with every ball," said Tripathi, who refused to disclose his profession or the money he raked in during the World Cup.