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India should legalise betting to stop corruption: Boycott
India should legalise betting to stamp out corruption in cricket, says former England captain Geoffrey Boycott who feels the menace of fixing emerges more frequently in the Asian countries.
India should legalise betting to stamp out corruption in cricket, says former England captain Geoffrey Boycott who feels the menace of fixing, which has currently dented the T20 League's reputation, emerges more frequently in the Asian countries.
"The way to stop it altogether, except for the odd one -- but we're getting too many at the minute -- is this business of making betting legal in India. It's illegal, so people do it," Boycott told 'ESPN Cricinfo'.
"When beer was illegal in America during prohibition, you had all this illegal drinking and all these mafia-type people and so forth involved. And so you'll get the worst type of society involved in betting, from the bookies and that sort of people, when you have something that people want to do but it's illegal," he explained.
But Boycott said it would take a lot out of the Indian government to decriminalise betting given that it doesn't "like change".
"Many people have suggested to the Indian government that making betting legal at cricket, like it's legal in horse-racing and so on, would stamp most of it [corruption] out," he said.
"But you know what it's like. Trying to explain to the Indian government, they think you are telling them something, they don't like it and they don't like to change," he added.
Indian cricket has been left shaken to the core by the ongoing T20 spot-fixing scandal, which has led to the arrest of three cricketers, including Test pacer S Sreesanth, and several bookies with underworld connections.
The former batsman and noted commentator felt that the problem seems to creep up more frequently in the Asian region than any other part of the cricketing landscape.
