Mumbai, April 23: Mumbai’s bookies are accepting bets on whether or not beleaguered IPL commissioner Lalit Modi will resign.
According to sources, the betting on Mr Modi’s fate in Indian cricket began after Mr Shashi Tharoor’s resignation as minister of state for external affairs.
“Till now, Rs 200 crores have been wagered,” a bookie said. “The returns on every rupee bet on Modi resigning between April 26 and May 1 are 16 paise,” the bookie added. The returns on every rupee bet on Mr Modi surviving in the IPL are a whopping Rs 5.5.
“It’s only been a few days since Mr Tharoor resigned and subsequent events, like the I-T raids, ED registering a case and the political fallout, occurred. Further, as there were no IPL matches for three to four days, we opened up bets on whether Mr Modi would resign or not,” said the bookie and added, “To our surprise, we got a very good response as till now more that Rs 200 crores is at stake and we expect the bets to go up to Rs 800 crores by May 1 (if Mr Modi doesn’t resign on April 26, the day of the IPL governing council meeting).”
Age Correspondent
