Cricket fans will be excited to note the return of the Indian Premier League (IPL) this September after the current season was postponed in early May as a number of participating players tested positive for coronavirus.
This is also excellent news for existing cricket betting sites in India, which can benefit from the long-awaited resumption in the United Arab Emirates and the huge (albeit often underestimated) demand for wagering on the sub-continent.
So, with the Chennai Super Kings scheduled to take on the Mumbai Indians on September 19th in Dubai, we ask whether it’s finally time for the Indian government to stop being in denial about cricket betting amongst Indian’s passionate fanbase.
The IPL and India’s Black Betting Market
It’s estimated that there are more than one billion cricket fans across the globe, with the Indian sub-continent thought to account for more than 90% of this number.
This is according to detailed research that has been carried out by the ICC, which has revealed the extent to which global viewership and betting numbers are driven by the Indian marketplace.
However, it’s to say that India’s national and state authorities aren’t taking advantage of such numbers, with sports wagering not officially legalised in most regions of India and domestic operators prohibited from offering betting markets directly to customers.
While local bettors can wager through international sites such as Betway (thanks to our outdated gambling legislation and its failure to make allowances for remote betting), this revenue is generated on behalf of treasuries located outside of India and in nations across the globe.
But precisely how much revenue are we talking about here? Well, according to a comprehensive FICCI report, approximately half of India’s $60 billion betting market is wagered illegally, while the black betting sector in the region was thought to be worth more than Rs 300,000 crore all the way back in 2012.
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that this number is now probably far more than 10-times higher, especially when figures from 2016 revealed that around $200 million was being wagered on every One-Day International (ODI) that featured the Indian national team.
So, by fully legalising on and offline sports betting in India, the country’s governance would open an entire marketplace to domestic operators, optimising the safety and security of players while diverting potentially significant funds back into the Indian economy.
Why Indian Authorities Remain in Denial About Sports and Cricket Betting
There are a couple of key takeaways here, as the demand for sports and cricket betting in India remains exponential, while this appears to be growing at a significant rate year on year.
At the same time, punters are already able to wager with relative freedom through international operators that offer cricket betting markets, so restricting access to domestic gambling brands seems both unnecessarily punitive and counterintuitive in equal measure.
Certainly, the continued refusal to fully legalise sports betting across multiple channels in India is baffling, and it suggests that the authorities are in denial about the extent and popularity of this vertical nationwide.
This stance is even more bewildering when you consider that horse race betting was made legal by the Indian Supreme Court way back in 1996. Back then, the Supreme Court justices made their decision based on the notion that horse racing betting was fundamentally based on skill, particularly from the perspective of reading form and analysing the past performance of runners and riders.
The question that remains, of course, is how exactly is cricket (or indeed any other sport) different?
Certainly, the same level of skill is required when selecting winners and losers from specific matches, while successfully deploying the range of betting markets on offer (such as handicap and winning margin wagers) requires an even more in-depth understanding of the sport and each participating side.
As we’ve already touched on, legalising cricket betting can also help to protect punters across the board while similarly safeguarding the reputation of the sport by partially preventing match-fixing.
This has proved to be a long-term scourge on the sport and the sub-continent as a whole, with the biggest example of match-fixing in India occurring during one of the formative IPL seasons back in 2013.
In this instance, three Indian cricketers (including ICC World Cup winner Shanthakumaran Sreesanth) were arrested and banned from the sport after being found guilty of spot-fixing and manipulating specific betting markets. This isn’t the only case of match-fixing in Indian and Pakistan cricket in recent times, and the concern remains that this type of activity is prevalent in the sub-continent.
However, a fully legalised, regulated, and monitored betting market can help to prevent such issues, primarily because the irregular activity of this type would most likely be spotted by operators in real-time and instantly reported to an independent regulator.
This is certainly something for the Indian authorities to consider, as the time has surely come to legalise cricket betting across the board and monetise this practice for the good of the wider economy.
