Cricket betting racket busted; 3 bookies held

HYDERABAD: Three bookies, who were organising betting on the ongoing India-West Indies ODI series, were arrested by city police.Shahinayathgunj police raided a pent house at Chudi Bazar on Friday night and nabbed the trio who were accepting betting on the India-West Indies match that was played in Visakhapatnam. The kingpin of the betting racket, Venu Gopal Sharma of Chudi Bazar, is popularly known as Idli Venu in the locality as he runs an idli shop. Police said Venu was organising the racket with help of two other accused, Anil Kumar and Sunny Kumar of Shahinayathgunj. Anil and Sunny are employees of Venu, Shahinayathgunj police sub-inspector K Srinivasulu said.Police said Venu was organising betting since the past two years. “Venu received bets over telephone and collected money through his workers. The next day, he hands over money to the winners,’’ the SI said. Police also suspect the accused are accepting bets online. Police recovered three laptops and 30 mobile phones. A communicating device, Operating Machine for making conference calls with punters, `59,500 cash and other equipment was seized.Police suspect the turnover of the racket was around `4 lakh for each match. Police also found the accused was in touch with two other betting organisers, Arvind and Murad, who are operating from Secunderabad.