First live-betting racket busted inside Eden Gardens stadium

Interrogation of the trio also led to arrest of their two associates from a hotel on Sudder Street in central Kolkata, less than two kilometres from the stadium. Police seized six mobiles and recovered ₹1, 40,000 cash from them.

Kolkata Police on Saturday arrested five men running a live cricket-betting racket from inside the Eden Gardens stadium where the second day of test match between India and Bangladesh was in progress.

A live betting racket, that was in operation inside the Eden Gardens during the day-night test match, was busted by police (HT Photo)

“This is the first time that people have been arrested doing live betting from inside the Eden Gardens stadium using telecast lag,” said Murli Dhar, joint commissioner (crime) of Kolkata Police.

Acting on a tip off, officers of the anti-rowdy section of the city police’s detective department arrested Sambhu Dayal (40), Mukesh Gare (46) and Chetan Sharma from the stadium’s G-1 block. While Gare and Sharma are from Madhya Pradesh, Dayal is a resident of Rajasthan.

“They were watching the match live and using the betting app on their mobile phones to operate the racket. Police seized 10 mobile phones and four gadgets (dabba) from the accused,” said Dhar.

Interrogation of the trio also led to arrest of their two associates from a hotel on Sudder Street in central Kolkata, less than two kilometres from the stadium. Police seized six mobiles and recovered ₹1, 40,000 cash from them.

On Sunday, 10 persons were arrested near the Eden Gardens stadium for selling tickets in black. In all 104 tickets were seized from their possession.