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| April 24, 2000 | ||
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Legalise Betting Don't let crony capitalism ruin cricket
Granting bookmakers a licence will not
merely be an altruistic indulgence. Given the sort of money that is being
spoken of, the Income-Tax Department could expect a healthy increment to
its bank balance. The vicious circle of black money being Wakey Wakey Mr Gupta Ram
Prakash Gupta, Uttar Pradesh's perennially lame-duck chief minister,
looked particularly glum in the state Assembly this past week. As the
treasury and opposition benches argued furiously over the rejection of the
Uttar Pradesh Trade Tax (Amendment) Bill at the very entry stage -- a
government motion to introduce There is a serious school of thought that sees history as a series of accidents. If this be so, Uttar Pradesh is making history every day. In the Assembly at least the Speaker stretches his vast knowledge of legal nuances to guide the Government out of troubled waters. Ordinary citizens have no such luck. Every charge of misgovernance the BJP laid at the door of Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar applies equally to Uttar Pradesh: a dysfunctional regime that can't even protect its citizens from extortion threats, much less collect revenue, a passing acquaintance with economic growth. The state that was once the leading educational centre in north India -- from Banaras to Allahabad, its universities were conveyer belts for talent -- is today a finishing school for crime, grime and waste. To boot it has a chief minister whose sense of purpose would put Nero to shame. |
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 © Living Media India Ltd |
As
the cricket world tries to cope with its ultimate existential crisis, the
Indian Government too could do with some self-study. The match-fixing
allegations of the past decade or so are an unfortunate fallout of illegal
betting rings operating largely in India. At a conservative estimate, the
quantum of money bet for each one-day international is Rs 100 crore. More
imaginative reports have multiplied that figure by 10. With the very act
of laying a wager outlawed, practitioners are restricted to a shadowy
world with flexible conduct rules. The market is limited to the initiated
-- rather than to just about anybody who feels like gambling Rs 100 on his
favourite team. The upshot: cartels that are not governed by market rules,
don't make money thanks to a large volume of customers and play safe by
bribing or trying to bribe cricketers. If ever there was a case for
legalising betting, it is this.
used for bets generating, in turn, more black money will be broken.
Cricket will benefit in that the plethora of rumours, innuendoes and
insinuations that has made virtually every big name a suspect will cease
to exist. Identities of those who place bets will be available for
scrutiny. Gossip about a cricketer's family member taking home a packet by
betting on a match in which the man himself was playing will be easily
verifiable -- and judged by norms of insider trading analogous to those in
the stock market. Cricket's most inglorious hour is the unfortunate
fallout of treating a gigantic commercial enterprise as an extension of
crony capitalism. It may be time to give the free market its due -- and
send that invitation to Ladbrokes to set up shop at Eden Gardens.
the
bill was rejected by 83 votes to 55 -- Gupta contributed little, thrust
his chin into his palm and walked out to mutter his favoured platitudes to
waiting journalists. The defeat of a budgetary financial proposal -- money
bill as it is called in parliamentary parlance -- usually leads to a
government's resignation. Gupta and the BJP-led coalition he heads stress
the Trade Tax Bill is a money bill all right but there is a difference
between voting it out and voting against its introduction for debate.
Constitutionally, this contention will pass muster but the victory is no
more than a technicality.