Another betting syndicate busted in Delhi

The Delhi police has busted five betting syndicates in the past fortnight, with betting amounts totaling to a swaggering 5.13 crore.

And there are still more rackets which are operational, say the police.

In the crack down of bookies operating in the capital, the Crime Branch has already placed 16people under arrest in five different raids.

Four of the five busted syndicates were betting on the India-Bangladesh and India-England match, while one was betting on the low key Sri Lanka-Kenya encounter.

Deputy Commissioner of police (Crime), Ashok Chand told rediff.com that all syndicates were using sophisticated softwares to do the betting.

"They took the ongoing rates of betting from (a UK based) website, www.betfare.com. Then depending on these rates, they calculated profit and loss using a software called 'back N lay PRO'. The rates fluctuate on basis of the runs scored and wickets taken. We recovered these softwares after scrutinizing their laptops," Chand said.

A senior police official said that the accused told them during interrogation that they downloaded the software from the internet. Back N lay PRO is easily available on the internet.

The busted syndicates had been operating from all over Delhi. One racket was busted in a hotel room in Karol Bagh, one in a flat in Rohini, one in a flat in Pitampura, one in east of Kailash and one in Ashok Vihar.

Police officials said that most of the arrested have been in the betting business for several year, but only one of the arrested, Anil Gupta, arrested from Pitampura, has a previous record in betting, when he was arrested in 2005.

Explaining the functioning of a betting racket, Inspector Arvind Singh of the Crime Branch explained, "Most of these rackets have been running for years. Their publicity happens mostly through word of mouth. The bookies take a percentage of the profit, which is pre-decided and explained to the punters."

Most of the arrested men are businessmen or property dealers. The bookies operated through multiple telephones, laptops and live telecast of the matches. Police have seized seven laptops, 70 mobile phones and eight television sets in their raids.

"They operated in a very professional manner. They recorded the conversations of the bets placed on their phones, so that there are no disputes later. They also entered the bet amounts and the rates on their laptops and also kept notebooks for manual entry backup. For an instant update of the bet rates through a set of mobile phones, kept especially for this purpose. Another dedicated bunch of phones are specifically kept for recording the placed bets. That is why such a huge a number of mobile phones were recovered," a police officer associated with the investigation said.

The syndicate busted in east of Kailash holds significance because the bookies arrested here did not place bets themselves. Rather, they coordinated with 32 bookies across the capital for placing the bets on behalf of punters, making it one of the largest organized syndicates.

Police officials said that they are continuing their crackdown on betting rackets in the Capital and more arrests are likely soon.