Hyderabad: In Hyderabad’s secret betting world, several punters are vouching for team India to win the cricket semi-final against Australia on Thursday. Many also favour the opponent. Apart from bets on which team will win, many bets are being placed on which batsman will score more than 50 runs. There will be more bets on Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma when compared to Virat Kohli. Bets on Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav’s overs will also be popular, say the bookies.
Hyderabad police officials have said that they are keeping their eyes open.
“In the earlier matches, the odds were always stacked against the weaker team. Since there are higher risks associated with putting money on a weaker team, the returns are also much bigger. However, as India has played very well so far, there is no such trend. Punters are putting money on India and Australia equally,” a bookie from Secunderabad said under the condition of anonymity.
There are two kinds of punters in the betting world. First is the one who puts money on the result of the match, predicting the team that would win the match. The other is the one who puts money on the outcome of single overs, six overs, and even 10 overs.
“They predict how many runs will be scored in the overs,” said an organiser.
The punters also bet on each main batsman’s score. “They can even place bets after the match begins. There will be several bets on Dhawan and Rohit Sharma for scoring more than 50 runs,” said a punter, who is also a student.
Most of the bookies in Hyderabad don’t accept less than Rs 1,000 as a bet. However, a few bookies, who target only students, even accept bets of Rs 500. The bets on who wins the match mainly start at Rs 5,000 and run into several thousands.
The bookie gets his profit from those who lose their money. He can claim up to 15 per cent of the total profit. Many bookies also have goondas and weapons ready in order to ‘take care of’ the disputes with the punters.
