Visakhapatnam: Betting organisers and punters in North Andhra region are capitalising on the betting craze in the state, to mint money. After the heavy betting on the Nandyal bypoll, the Pro-Kabaddi-League fever has now gripped the region with heavy betting going on regarding the individual performances of the star players, both the raiders and the defenders of the various teams.
The fifth edition of the PKL was not very interesting when compared to the previous leagues as four more teams have joined in the league and the number to teams has increased to 12 but some good players have been spotted. Though there are 200 players in the PKL, only a few players are popular. The betting trend has changed in the PKL-V as many are now placing bets on individual performances of some top raiders and defenders (Rahul Chaudary, Pardeep Narwal, Nitin Tomar, Rohit Kumar, Anup Kumar, and defenders Sandeep Narwal, Manjeet Chillar, Ravinder Pahal, Fazel Atrachali and few others) rather than on the results of the matches.
Explaining the modus operandi, the punter said that in the match between Patna Pirates and Telugu Titans, the betting organisers fixed rates on the players’ performances such as the best raider, the best defender and the man of match. If a person bets on a particular player being the best raider and his choice emerges as the best raider of the match, the punter would win the amount betted on but if his player was not the best raider then he would lose his betting amount.
ACP (Task Force) I Chittibabu said, “We have received information about the ongoing betting operations in the city and our teams have been on the job to bust such operations.” Sources said that the Telugu Desam is the favourite in the Nandyal bypolls while the YSRC is the underdog as per the betting organisers. The rates for the bypoll is 20:25, this means that if a person bets one rupee in favour of YSRC and if YSRC goes on to win, he would get Rs 25 in return. If TD wins, the winner will get only Rs 20 in return.
