News Ticker

Indian scammers faked a cricket season and conned Russian gamblers out of their money

IMAGE: Gizmodo

This is like the plot out of a movie.

By James Dator | 11 July 2022

SB NATION — In the greatest sporting example of “fake it till you make it,” a group of farm hands and unemployed youth in a small town in Gujarat, India faked weeks of Indian Premier League cricket for an audience of Russian gamblers.

The “season” made it all the way to the quarterfinals, before police learned of the fake league and busted up the fraud. Still, for a few magical weeks, gamblers gave their money to the league, watched live streams of matches, and had no idea they were watching a bunch of random dudes playing fixed cricket, and not one of the most lucrative sports in the world.

Anyone who knows the sport is aware the Indian Premier League ended three weeks before the fake league began, but that still wasn’t enough to tip off the would-be gamblers. Hired players were each paid 400 rupees a game (approximately $5 USD), and given replica jerseys of the Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans. Umpires, believed to be the league organizers, communicated via walkie talkie to get updated information on where betting action was coming from, and directly communicated with players on what they had to do in order to ensure gamblers were losing.

Streamed on YouTube, the league even offered cricket seminars for Russian bettors, so they could better understand the game before putting their money down. […]

1 Comment on Indian scammers faked a cricket season and conned Russian gamblers out of their money

  1. Conning people appears to be an East Indian trait. Just ask my Wife who worked in a bank as a Teller(now called customer reps), for many years. What accent do you hear more often than not on the phone when they tell you your credit card has bogus entries(when it doesn’t), when you hear your taxes are in arrears(when they’re not), when they tell you your computer has been hacked and we can fix it, etc. Meanwhile the Trudeau and Biden regimes are flooding their respective countries with more the same.

Leave a Reply to canadadienastyCancel reply

Winter Watch

Discover more from Winter Watch

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading