The £100-million set to be gambled on the World Cup with bookmakers in Britain pales into insignificance when compared with the sums talked of being punted on the sub-continent, where betting in many countries is illegal, but where amounts of perhaps half as much as Britain’s total can be wagered on a single game.
The totals risked are not the only difference between the gambling cultures of cricket bettors in Britain and Asia.
The type of bets and the way they are placed also differ significantly. In recent years, the number of markets offered by fixed-odds bookmakers has grown extensively and includes which team would win the toss. Most firms also bet during play on the outcome of the match. There are, however, bets that layers in Britain steer clear of.
”We tend to avoid perceived ‘negative bets’ in all betting markets if we consider bets to be in bad taste,” said a Ladbrokes spokesperson, David Williams, referring to issues such as a bowler being hit for six or a wicketkeeper dropping a catch.
This contrasts with some aspects of betting on cricket in Asia, where punters routinely bet on whether a delivery will be a dot ball or a particular player will be dropped from the team.
These are instances of what former Pakistan Cricket Board chairperson Shaharyar Khan describes as ”spot-fixing”. It is almost always an outcome that an individual can control and, while they may be insignificant in the context of the match, they can attract huge sums of money from betting syndicates.
The term ”spot-fixing” or ”spot-betting” is not widely used among punters or bookmakers in the United Kingdom, and firms there would rarely indulge customers wanting to bet on the number of wides in an over, for example.
If they did, the wagers would be too small and whoever placed the bet would be under scrutiny. Bookmakers will always be cautious of requests from punters that concern a sizeable wager on a relatively obscure market. If there were an unexpected flood of big bets on one batsman to score more runs in an innings than another, alarm bells would start ringing on the trading floor of that bookmaker.
If the layer smelled foul play, the wager would not be accepted.
”As betting ‘in play’ is a popular and growing aspect of our bets portfolio, we are constantly monitoring betting patterns and money wagered,” Williams said. ”Irregular betting patterns in fixed-odds markets are extremely rare.”
The advent of spread betting in sport and, more recently, betting exchanges, both of which offer, in effect, the ability to back teams or individuals to perform badly, has been cited as making it easier to fix matches.
Cricket has always been tremendously popular among spread bettors, who regularly indulge in the buying and selling of batsmen’s runs. It is a bet that, in theory, can be vulnerable to insider trading but Wally Pyrah, of Sporting Index, is convinced that skulduggery is rare. ”You have to remember that spread betting is regulated by the FSA [Financial Services Authority] and because of that, all bets are legally binding contracts,” he said.
”The information we collate from our clients is the same that a bank would require from its customers.”
Similarly, the paper trail is so extensive at exchange firms such as Betfair that anyone attempting to manipulate the market can be traced. Unfortunately, the lack of regulations on the sub-continent leads to bookmakers and betting syndicates that are apparently resorting to extreme methods to protect their investments. — Â