Hyderabad: Although Hyderabad police busted many betting rackets during the IPL season, some bookies and punters successfully evaded the police fully covering their tracks.
With their conventional methods, police could not get to the punters, as they were placing bets by clicking links in their smart phones and computers. City punters said that around 30 betting apps and websites were active during the IPL season.
The apps and websites like 24sevenbet and betfair could be used to place bets and view matches live. Unlike previous years, many youngsters switched to the cyberspace to place their bets to avoid the police.
In the case of online betting, police cannot build a strong case against offenders. Most cases fall flat in court during hearings as there are no specific Internet gambling laws in India.
“According to the Public Gambling Act (1867), all kinds of gambling are illegal in India. But, there is no specific Internet gambling law with which the offenders can be prosecuted. Still, when we arrest organisers, who take money from punters and place bets on behalf of them, we book a case against them under the Gaming Act as there is a transaction offline between the organiser and the punters which is illegal,” said a senior police official working with the Commissioner’s Task Force.
Many of the apps and websites like bet365 and betfair are based and registered under British gambling laws. So, Indian police cannot go after them. Besides legal reasons, most youngsters this year switched to these apps and websites because of other reasons as well.
“You can place bets not only on matches. You can bet on possibly every aspect of an IPL match from the toss to how bowlers will perform and the odds on a batsman scoring a 50 or a hundred. They also have instruction videos on how to open an online account and operate it smoothly. The betting is fair and square too,” said a techie from Kondapur who places online bets regularly.
