IPL 2020 betting – Police formulates new strategy for curbing menace

IPL 2020 is on in full swing. This is the time when viewer interest across websites and on TV is at it’s highest. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be no fans in the stadium and that is the reason why viewership and streaming records might be broken in this edition of the Indian Premier League. Now, the police have created a Plan B in order to tackle the menace of betting. Recently, on Thursday, six people were arrested in Bangalore and six lakhs were seized by the Crime Branch for allegedly betting on the IPL. Two cases were also registered regarding the incident. 

Now, the Uttar Pradesh police have come up with a Plan-B to tackle the menace of betting. According to Babloo Kumar, the SSP of Agra Police, they have come up with a major plan. SSP Babloo Kumar has created intelligence units and he has alerted teams in places where betting takes place in large numbers. SSP Babloo Kumar stated that those caught betting will be directly sent to jail. The Agra SSP also appealed to the youth to not indulge in betting in the IPL. 

IPL betting

There are no gambling laws in India that strictly prohibiting Indians from betting on cricket, but the central government does not see betting on the sport as a game of skill like horse racing. IPL and cricket satta has irony written all over it, as far as gambling is concerned. According to a report by the All India Gaming Federation, the Indian exchequer loses almost INR 2 Lakh Crore each year due to illegal betting on cricket.

Following the 2013 spot-fixing scandal that took place in the IPL, in 2016, an order was passed by a division bench of the Supreme Court which recommended: “Recommendation of legalizing betting involves the enactment of a law that may be examined by the Law Commission and the Government for such action that it deems fit”.

In June 2018, the law commission submitted a recommendation to the central government which called for legalizing betting in India but under stringent control. The prime reason was to curb rampant money laundering. The Commission inferred that since it’s almost impossible to completely ban cricket betting in India, regulating cricket betting and gambling under stringent laws is the correct course of action.

When it comes to Internet gambling is a truly global business. Although the Central Government has no jurisdiction over foreign bookmakers who operate legally under European and International Law, they have taken some action to make using these sites more difficult. As far as international sites are concerned, Indian laws don’t apply to them directly as they operate under a legal gambling license in other jurisdictions. With no servers, advertising or anything else going on in India, the authorities can’t do much to stop them from servicing Indian customers.