JOIN USDays after Delhi Police smashed a betting syndicate operating in the city, another racket taking bets was exposed in north Delhi during the cricket world cup final match between New Zealand and Australia on Sunday.
Police said three bookies were arrested while they were accepting bets from punters in the city. The total amount placed till the time of the raid on the day of the final match was Rs 75 lakh, said police on Monday.
A total of nine mobile phones, a TV set and a laptop were among several betting-related items recovered from the bookies. In a similar case on March 19, an alleged bookie was arrested at his home in Paschim Vihar.
One hundred and ten mobile phones, all arranged systematically in a wooden cupboard, were recovered from his home. Police had said he was taking ball-by-ball rates from the punters for the quarterfinal match between India and Bangladesh.
The arrangement was quite similar in Sunday’s case with rates being received by the bookies on one mobile phone. They were then communicated to all the punters by broadcasting them simultaneously over the remaining phones which were well arranged on a bed.
Police had learnt that betting would go on at a house in Old Sabzi Mandi’s Gali Thane Wali. A policeman entered the house as a decoy punter and placed a bet of Rs 1,500 before signaling to other members of the team to make arrests.
The arrested men have been identified as Amit, Gaurav and Mohit, all in their early thirties. They were arrested as they were noting down the betting rates being communicated to them over one central phone known as dabba.
Efforts to identify the punters based on the mobile phones recovered are being made, claimed police. The suspects’ past involvement in betting racket too are being probed.