Sports betting are illegal in India. So what? If you are in the UK and you are 18 years or above, you can earn in lakhs through betting. Don’t believe me? Ok, let me tell you then.
Cricket is the game where people bet, ever their livelihood. Though illegal in India, it is a high stakes game involving some fabulous amounts of money.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has found a UK-based betting website – www.betfair.com – has seen remittances amounting to at least $3,000 crore (about Rs 1.9 lakh crore) through 10 million login IDs that originated in India.
The amount is estimated to be almost five times the size of Delhi budget.
“There are one crore login IDs from India on betfair.com and these accounts average a transaction of $3,000 (Rs 1.9 lakh),†a leading national daily quoted an ED officer on condition of anonymity.
The ED tracks money-laundering and investigates foreign exchange violations.
According to ED officials, in spite of a ban on the website, imposed by the Mumbai High Court in 2010, the website is still active.
On June 18, the ED was planning to move court to investigate Betfair.com in connection with a multi-crore cricket betting case the agency is probing in Ahmedabad.
According to Betfair’s website, the company clocked a revenue of 476.5 million pounds in 2014-15, up 21% compared to the previous year, while the operating profit of the company went up by 53% to 94.3 million pounds.
As soon as cricket season starts, top bookies from the country move to the UK and other parts of the world – France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, and a few other countries where betting is legal – and play safe.
The bookies with ‘super master’ accounts pass on ‘master’ accounts to their partners in India and Pakistan, who further give sub-login accounts to small-time bookies and punters, the daily stated.