Gurugram crime: T20 betting racket busted in DLF Phase-1

Cracking down against cricket betting rackets in the city, the crime branch of Gurugram arrested four people from DLF Phase-1 on Saturday night for allegedly facilitating bets on matches of the ongoing T20 Cricket World Cup since October 17

Cracking down on cricket betting rackets in the city, the crime branch of Gurugram arrested four people from DLF Phase-1 on Saturday night for allegedly facilitating bets on matches of the ongoing T20 Cricket World Cup since October 17.

The bookies used software that connected over 500 people to the digital scoreboard for placing bets on the T20 Cricket World Cup matches. (Representative image/Shutterstock)

According to the police, the suspects are repeat offenders and were allegedly running a huge network across north India from Gurugram. The suspects were identified as Luxman Singh (53), Satpal Singh (36), Pardeep Singh (31) and Neeraj Kumar (31), all from Delhi. They were allegedly working together for the past four years.

Luxman was earlier arrested by Palam Vihar and Sector 65 police, in unrelated incidents, and was out on bail since July, the police said.

Preet Pal Sangwan, the assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that Luxman is the kingpin of the gang and is linked to other bookies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the cricket tournament is taking place. “They rented a two-bedroom floor in Block E of DLF Phase-1 and set up the laptops in a room, where operators were receiving calls,” he said.

Sangwan said that the bookies used software that connected over 500 people to the digital scoreboard for placing bets. “We are conducting an investigation and cyber teams are tracking all people who were in touch with them and were involved in betting from different cities,” he said.

The police estimate that the gang had placed bets up to ₹3 crore so far and were set to receive bets amounting to ₹6 crore for the India-Pakistan match, but were caught.

Explaining the betting process, the police said that the betting system comprises a main bookie, two sub-bookies and punters. Each stakeholder has a fixed commission based on the match.

This year, the police have arrested 16 bookies so far, while over 64 groups of bookies were busted last year.

The police said that the suspects were booked under relevant sections of the Public Gambling Act. The bookmakers were on the police radar since last year after they were arrested from Palam Vihar and Sector 65 in two separate instances.

KK Rao, the commissioner of police, said that such operations mushroom during cricket tournaments. “The bookies earlier operated out of Delhi, but for the past three years, they have shifted their base to Gurugram and are mostly operating out of residential areas to escape police attention,” he said.

The police recovered 45 mobile phones, five laptops and two 60-inch television sets, which were used to telecast the matches.