Bookies taking advantage of 12-second telecast lag in cricket matches, says Enforcement Directorate

Mumbai Indians were crowned the IPL champions in the recently concluded season

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has made an important note of the 12-second real-time broadcast delay during cricket matches, saying that the bookies are taking huge advantage of it to make hundreds of crores.

According to the reports in Hindustan Times (HT), the broadcast lag, stolen live feed on the internet and ball-by-by commentary over the phone by from inside the stadium are helping bookies make their betting easy. This was revealed after a thorough investigation by the Ahmedabad unit of ED. Many arrests were also made.

“They make their man sit inside the stadium and provide ball-by-ball commentary during matches,” an ED officer said.

HT further reports that during the Indian Premier League (IPL) season bookies have been using the lag telecast to make a lot of black money as they come to know what has happened before bets are placed.

“As there is a lag between real-time and the telecast feed, live inputs from the ground help bookies manipulate betting patterns because by the time people place their bets, these bookies already know what has happened on the ground,” the officer added.

The ED is the machinery that is responsible for tracking money-laundering and investigation of foreign exchange violations. An officer said that they are trying to find the sources of the links which allow the bookies to bet online using proxy networks.

“We are also investigating how these people are getting illegal access to ‘live uplink’ feed of IPL matches much before it is beamed to viewers.”

Prasanna Krishnan, who is the business head of Sony Six (IPL broadcaster), said that the lag in the live telecast happens everywhere and it is a standard.

“The broadcast of any event live from the venue to TV screens involves the transmission of the broadcast signal across several intermediate stages via satellite and cable which leads to a time lag of a few seconds. This is standard across the industry.”