Make a bet. Legalise sports betting. It is long overdue
The government should heed the Law Commission report.
Every time a big sporting event comes up, chances are some enterprising colleague in your office is going around, asking people to place bets, exhorting them to get in the “spirit of the game”, have “some fun even if they don’t watch” the sport.
Technically, that enthusiastic colleague, and all other enthused participants, are breaking the law, because sports betting is illegal in almost all states in India (except Sikkim).
However, if the Centre accepts a recent report by the Law Commission, the merry bet-placers can be brought back to the straight life.
The report, titled Legal Framework: Gambling and Sports Betting including Cricket in India, has recommended that betting on sports events be legalised, with adequate safeguards put in place.
This was long due.
Big source of revenue for government
Betting on sports is a multi-crore-rupee industry. Despite being illegal, it is clearly flourishing, and that money is ending up in the hands of underworld operators and other criminal elements. Legalising it will mean the winnings can be taxed by the government, the industry can be properly regulated, and practices such as match-fixing can be curbed.
Let’s talk numbers first.
A report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) has estimated the sports betting market in India to be worth at least Rs 3,00,000 crore. This is a 2012 report - the amount would have grown since.
In 2017, the All India Gaming Federation CEO Roland Landers had told The Indian Express, “Let’s say if this (Rs 3,00,000 crore) is the figure for a starting point and if we imply GST at 18 per cent… then just that is over Rs 1600 crore.”
Betting on horse racing in India is legal, and winning on bets are charged at up to 30 per cent. Imagine the massive source of revenue that legalised betting on other sports, specially cricket, can open for the government – money that can then be used for social welfare schemes, on public infrastructure, indeed, to beef up sports facilities across the country.
The scale of operations of illegal betting is enormous — according to a report in The Economic Times, “Bets worth $200 million (about Rs 1,300 crore) are placed every time the Indian team plays an ODI. Every IPL match draws in as much as $100 million (about Rs 530 crore) to the domestic illegal betting pool. Cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata have as many as 2,500 main bookies, supported by several punters.”
Making these operations legal, thus, can also be a source of employment generation, with people formally working as bet-placers and collection agents.
Can help curb match-fixing
Betting on sports is legal in several countries, such as Australia, the UK, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa. The experience in these countries suggests that if a match has been fixed and illegal bets are being placed over it, the formal betting industry is the first to know, and alert law-enforcement agencies.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan, chairman of the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unit, on a visit to India in 2016 had said: “If we talk about countries (like England) where betting is legal and heavily regulated, we have a Memorandum of Understanding with the legitimate betting industry and we find that is helpful because they report to us on any unusual spike in betting about a particular event or a particular time and we investigate it and they stop taking bets when that happens. Obviously, in the black market, the betting industry is harder to track.”
Basically, if industry insiders notice that unusually heavy bets are being placed on a weak team or player, an alarm is raised as that means there are chances of the match’s outcome being manipulated.
Law on weak wicket
While the UK has legalised betting and is earning revenue from it, the activity continues to remain illegal in India under the British-era Public Gambling Act, 1867.
This law differentiates between a “game of skill” and a “game of chance” — betting on a game of skill is not illegal under the Act. This is the logic used to legalise betting on horse races. In 1996, when ruling on horse races, the Supreme Court had said: “Betting on horse racing or athletic contests involves the assessment of a contestant’s physical capacity and the use of other evaluative skills”.”
It is difficult to imagine why the same reasoning cannot be extended to all other sports — for instance, before placing a bet on a cricket match, one would need knowledge of players’ abilities, their form, past statistics, of how the pitch is likely to turn, etc.
Let’s not get moral, paternalistic
The most common argument against betting is that it is 'immoral', and if the poor start blowing up their money on it, it will be especially detrimental.
If you legalise betting in sports you will not only spoil the sport but also turn every paan shop in the country into a 'juye ka adda'. Does the BJP-NDA govt want to turn every paan shop in the country into a 'juye ka adda'?: Manish Tewari, Congress pic.twitter.com/seri2O29z8
— ANI (@ANI) July 6, 2018
However, the Law Commission report has adequate safeguards against this: according to The Indian Express, “the report recommends that minors and people below the poverty line, those who get subsidies or do not fall within the purview of the Income Tax Act or the GST Act, should be debarred from participating.”
It also makes a distinction between “proper betting” for higher stakes and “small gambling” for people with low income.
The government has been deprived of a lucrative source of revenue and foreign investment, and people have been robbed of jobs – and quite simply, some fun – because we continue to follow an arcane law. Because of our queasy sense of morality, bigger crimes are being allowed to run riot.
As the Law Commission pointed out: “The argument that had gambling been regulated in the Mahabharat period, Yudhishtir could not have put his brothers and wife as stakes and perhaps Mahabharat could not have been there, is full of substance.”