Bookies made money through time lapse in live match telecast, says ED

Bookies made money through time lapse in live match telecast, says ED

The difference in time between a live event — in this case, an IPL match — and its telecast has been used to the advantage of set of bookies in India, allowing them to keep winning large bets placed by punters, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has revealed in a charge sheet filed in a district court in Ahmedabad. One person in this team of bookies relayed updates from the field to his teammates, and the news gained in advance helped them make ‘a killing’, according to a report in Mumbai Mirror. READ: IPL 2015: 3 matches under ED scanner

The lag is estimated to be about six to seven seconds. Chhotu Jalandhar, a bookie, would gain knowledge of the events on the field through associates, and would inform five other bookies in his network with the help of a phone number. The ED has based this on the confessions of an arrested bookie under Jalandhar, Ritesh Bansal, who also spoke about links with Dubai and Pakistan. READ: Four people arrested for betting in Mangalore

ED’s charge sheet also mentions the fraud committed with the misuse of UK’s website, BetFair. Users interested in a ‘super master login identity’, under which at least 310 accounts and sub login Ids existed, would have to be paid for the service. The payment — $300,000 — would have be done via angadias (traditional couriers) for it to be collected abroad; bookies would take Rs. 30 per dollar for this service.  A bookie named Mukesh Kumar had earned Rs. 15 crores in commission through this.

The ED has made plenty of arrests of bookies in the recent past, but there wasn’t any mention of ‘match-fixing’ in the current charge sheet.