After a major crackdown on betting syndicates in India following the CBI probe, Australia is being increasingly seen as the next hub of betting activities, especially by Indians.

Betting in sports is legal in most parts of Australia and betting companies in the country, who have many Indians as their regular clients, are looking forward to the Australian tour to India next month to boost their business.

Australian bookmakers say Indian punters, mostly Non-Resident Indians living in London, Dubai and elsewhere, are big betters investing around $200,000-300,000 during the course of a single game.

In the forthcoming series, there are speculations of 'close bidding' with a lot of Indian punters putting money for draws rather than a win in a Test match. "Each Test would be a million US dollars. It will be even bigger than the Ashes in July when Australia play against England," said Gerard Diffy, manager of CentreBet, one of the largest and oldest sports betting companies in Australia.

"The days of brown paper bags and tin shades are over. The scam has made people wary of illegal bookies thereby boosting the market for legal betters. Punters have got more confidence as bad people in the game have been exposed," he said. And as betting in the sub-continent becomes more and more risky and difficult, most companies in Australia are expecting several thousand new clients from India in the coming years.

According to Australian bookmakers, most Indian punters prefer 'in-the-run-betting' rather than bidding before the game. Sometimes the 30-40 seconds between two deliveries is enough time to trade. Only small punters, investing between $500-2000, bet before the game. "Indians are very clever at betting with intricate knowledge of the game. Sometimes the game can swing in the last two or three overs, so they prefer to put in their money through the game rather than before the match starts," Craig Nott of Melbourne Betting Shop said.

During the recent series between Australia and West Indies, one Indian bookie made $155,000 betting with CentreBet by the time the third Test match came to an end. Another Indian earned Australian $100,000 with the Melbourne Betting Shop. Bookmakers said Indian bookies loved Australia and put all their money on the Aussies. Besides cricket, Indians bet a lot on tennis. Hockey is also fast emerging as another favourite for the Indians.

CentreBet, which deals in every sport with 25 per cent of its business comprising cricket betting, has about 60 regular Indian clients. "These are mostly NRIs and they largely bet in US dollars," Diffy said. CentreBet is the second company in the world to start a live Internet betting site and offers facilities to bet in five languages - English, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish and German - and covers ten currencies. "Most people from the sub-continent bet in English, so we haven't felt the need for Hindi. We chose the other four languages as Scandinavians have disposable incomes and are sports fanatics," Diffy said.

There are 25 small and big sports betting companies in the country with six or seven offering facilities for Internet trading. Nott, whose Melbourne Betting Shop deals exclusively in cricket, said an increasing number of Indian punters were attracted towards Australia in the last five or six years because barriers of language and forbidding telephone costs have been overcome. "In Victoria, we are still negotiating with the government to be allowed to accept bets on the Internet like other states. Telephone costs and risks of telephone tapping deter international punters," he said. Nott said his shop had eight regular Indian bookies and six of them won on Australia on every single Test match during the recent West Indies tour.

Some companies like TAB Sportsbet in Melbourne take only cash bidding through their 1500 outlets throughout the country. "To bet with us one has have money in the bank account. This is probably a deterrent for international punters. However, local Indians do bet with us," Garry Davies of TAB Sportsbet said.

© PTI