Other Sites

Video Poker

India Mulls Legalizing Gambling; What a Big Market that Would be for Casino Owners

Now, you think WE have gambling problems in the U.S.?

Check this out.

In India, gambling is illegal but for horse racing and a few casinos in Goa.

Well…I don’t know much about India, but I do know they are crazy about cricket. You know…that game which evolved in baseball here in the U.S.

Seems like the Indian government is looking at proposals to legalise the country’s multi-million-dollar underground gambling market to tackle corruption in cricket, according to a newspaper report in India.

India is regarded as the hotbed of global betting syndicates, with gamblers and bookmakers involved in a massive network of illegal “spot-fixing” — when stakes are pitched on individual balls or on short passages of play.

“The aim is to ascertain whether legalized betting can exist in India without the stigma attached to it now. So, we are looking at the pros and cons with great care,” an unnamed sport ministry official told the Times of India.

The shady world of Indian bookmakers came to light in a match-fixing scandal in 2000 that led to life bans for cricket captains Hansie Cronje (South Africa), Mohammad Azharuddin (India) and Salim Malik (Pakistan).

The scandal broke when New Delhi police, working on an unrelated extortion case, tapped a conversation between Cronje and an alleged bookmaker.

The Times said in a front-page editorial that the ban on sports gambling “only pushes it underground, making it lucrative for criminal elements”.

As I said earlier, gambling in India is largely illegal except at horse races and a handful of casinos in Goa and Sikkim states, although a number of other local legislatures now permit lottery gaming.

Legal sports gambling in India could prove a major tax revenue for the government.

Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar?

Let’s see what happens.