Mumbai: The ‘satta’ market virtually bled as hot favourites India fell by the wayside in the World cup semi-finals on Wednesday. A ‘betting’ insider told the FPJ that with more than 90 percent of the bets riding on India, it was a day out for the bookies and they ran away with the booty, which according to one of them was over Rs 1000 crore in India and over Rs 2000 across the globe. At the receiving end were the punters who lost over 1000 crore. Initially, the Kiwis' dismal batting had very few takers. For the much-hyped semi-final challenge, the rate for favourite India was Rs 4.35 while for NZ, it was Rs 49!
That meant, New Zealand had been written off as a loser -- almost. Surprisingly, even in the session-to-session online betting, the punters, in the final stages of the match, had favoured India (when the score was 200/6 and Dhoni & Jadeja were at the crease). But a big disappointment waited for them: New Zealand bounced back in the last two overs.
Dhoni's run out at the fag-end of the game came as a heartbreaker for punters and all their money went down the drain, leaving the bookies with the booty. Those who out of misplaced loyalty placed their bets on New Zealand were cruising on Cloud nine.The satta bazaar yo-yoed in the initial three overs when a much confident Team India's top three batsman -- R. Sharma, K.L. Rahul and skipper Virat Kohli -- lost their wickets and went back to the pavilion in just 5 runs.
Thousands of big punters had reserved suites and rooms in five star hotels for organising late night parties but had to cancel their bashes after they suffered huge losses as India went down. One Rajveer Singh said he had lost over Rs 10 crore that he had made from previous matches."Even in session-to-session bidding, punters lost huge amounts as they had placed bets on Dhoni-Jadeja partnership which was in top form during the last session," said another punter. India's crash pushed Ghaziabad's trading mandi, known for satta, into gloom.The betting bazaars in Delhi had gone crazy on Tuesday as the police estimated that the bids had crossed the Rs 150-crore mark in the National Capital Region (NCR).
Bets were placed on the margin of victory in terms of runs and wickets and also on whether runs scored by India and New Zealand could be 400-plus or below 400.An interesting bet was on as to who would take more than three wickets from both camps -- whether it would be spinners or pace bowlers. Also, was it to be Jaspirt Bumrah/Yuzvendra Chahal or New Zealand's Trent Boult or Lockie Ferguson?The base betting rate of Indian players, for example, in the case of Bumrah, was Rs 20, while for Boult, it was Rs 7, said a source.The other bets were on star batsmen -- Indian skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill -- whether they would score half-century or a century.
