Sikkim prepares to open India’s first ‘online’ betting shops

Sports betting should be legalized in India post-haste, according to the man who led the inquiry into alleged match- and spot-fixing in the India Premier League (IPL).

Speaking recently at the Sports Authority of India, Southern Center, Mukul Mudgal (pictured), the former chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, said India needed to legalize sports betting to reduce recurrences of the cheating shenanigans that gave the IPL such a black eye two years ago.

Mudgal expressed similar sentiments as long ago as 2012, a year before India’s cricket world was rocked by allegations of cheating and fixing. In May 2015, Mudgal again argued for legal betting, saying it would reduce the generation of “black money” in the sport.

In his most recent call to arms, Mudgal noted that groups like FIFA had systems in place to analyze suspicious betting patterns. The Deccan Herald quoted Mudgal saying that fixing shenanigans “cannot be eliminated completely but can be reduced to certain extent by taking such measures.”