IPL 2016: Hyderabad bookies bank on Sunrisers Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Most local bookies of Hyderabad think that Sunrisers Hyderabad will win the IPL final and have committed lakhs in betting.

Despite police conducting massive raids, the punters sit at home and make deals over phone and bank transactions. An organiser said that apart from bets on the final outcome of the match, a large number of bets have been placed on the individual scores of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Virat Kohli and SRH's David Warner. Hyderabad and Cybera-bad police busted the maximum number of cricket betting rackets this year.

Since it is the final match, more bets will be on the outcome of the match than on specific overs or scores of batsmen, which used to be the trend till the semi-finals. “Most of the bets are on who wins the final. Other bets are about the scores of top batsmen like Virat Kohli,” said an organiser.  

Police said there are active betting organisers who accept bets only through banks. “They do not accept cash and do deals only over the phone to escape the police. When we busted a racket in Mallapur in the second week of May, the arrested punters and organisers said they accepted money only through banks,” said an official of the Cyberabad Special Operation Team of Malkajgiri.

The organisers talk over phone with punters and record telephone conversations. They also keep updating on bets through SMSes and Whatsapp, added the official.

There are also high-profile organisers in Hyderabad who deal with punters from other states.  When the south zone team of the commissioner’s task force busted a racket in the second week of May, the cops found that the arrested organiser Visha Sharma and his friend Suraj Sharma had been operating in Hyderabad since three years and that the punters were from Maharashtra and Hyde-rabad.

“They live here pretending to be businessmen. But, during the IPL season, they have more than Rs five lakh daily turnover from betting,” said a senior official of the commissioner's task force.