Five held in Ghaziabad for running betting syndicate for IPL matches

The police have recovered 15 mobiles, laptop, three WiFi modems, a LCD TV and registers related to transactions taken up by the accused

The Ghaziabad crime branch on Tuesday arrested five persons accused of running a betting syndicate during the ongoing IPL cricket matches. The members were arrested from a flat in Vrindavan Green Apartments in Sahibabad.

The accused were arrested from a flat in Vrindavan Green Apartments in Sahibabad. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

According to police, the syndicate was operated by Paras Narang who hails from Badaun and presently resides in Dilshad Colony, Delhi. He took the flat on rent and invited other members to place bets on IPL matches.

The other accused persons of the group were identified as Vipin Goel, Ashok Kumar Jain, Anshul Jain and Amrish Mittal. They hail from Delhi, Baghpat and Noida.

“Paras purchased a ‘line’, which helps connect nearly 500 persons through messaging and broadcast. One of the main bookies used to be in the cricket ground while the matches are ongoing. Since there is a slight delay in the broadcast, the bookie has an advantage of being there in real-time and offer instances for people to bet on,” said Akash Tomar, superintendent of police (city).

Once the match is on, the group used to invite ‘punters,’ the other members, to place bets. The bets are generally placed on instances like a team surpassing a particular score in 10 overs or not, winning or losing of toss before the start of the match, runs to be made in an over or next three balls, etc.

“Since the main bookie would be on the ground, the betting team gets to have a real-time knowledge of events happening. They would use certain algorithms so that more people lose bets and only a few win. This helped them make a neat profit,” Tomar added.

The police have recovered 15 mobiles, laptop, three WiFi modems, a LCD TV and registers related to transactions taken up by the accused.

However, the police have failed to trace the people up in the line. They said they have come across several persons and more arrests would be made soon.