IPL launches new mobile lottery.. Its not betting says Modi

The Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday launched a controversial SMS game asking fans to predict the scores of a live match. The winners will get cash awards.

According to the rules of the game, the entrant will have to send the runs that will be scored off every ball of the next over (for example 3 2 4 2 6 6, like in a lottery ticket) and the people guessing six, five or four numbers in the sequence correctly will get a percentage of the kitty generated by the total number of people playing at that time. The minimum prize money for every over is Rs 10,000 and will increase after that, depending on the entries received, at Rs 5 per SMS.

While the early reaction from experts is that this is a form of online cricket betting, which is illegal in India, IPL commissioner Lalit Modi denied it. Its only about texting. Anyway, there is a lot of texting going back and forth, discussing the game. This is very similar to that, discussing the game amongst friends, he said.

The person in the stadium has no idea what the people are predicting. Its very difficult to fix the outcome of an over. I think, maybe one in a million. We have checked it out and looked at it very carefully. If that was to happen, we would shut it out absolutely, without doubt.

When contacted on Tuesday evening, an International Cricket Council (ICC) media officer said that the governing body had not heard about the game, but would anyway have no say in the matter because the ICC has no direct involvement in the IPL. The BCCI had, prior to the start of the tournament, refused to pay the $1.2m fees asked by the anti-corruption unit of the ICC, and the second edition of the IPL is not under the surveillance of the games governing body.

The game, 6UP, will be available only to Indian mobile subscribers starting from Wednesdays matches.

[the article was originally published at http://cricket.expressindia.com/news/IPL-launches-new-mobile-lottery--it-s-not-betting--Modi/455083]

IPL cannot afford to be complacent on corruption threat: ICC

Indian Premier League's refusal to take the ICC's help in dealing with the threat of match fixing is not much of a concern for the governing body but it has warned that the cash-rich Twenty20 event remains very vulnerable to corruption.

"The board has consistently said it cannot afford to be complacent (about the risk of corruption in Twenty20 cricket)," ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat told 'Cricinfo'.

"We are mindful that with Twenty20 cricket there is great excitement and money. Put those ingredients into a pot and there is a higher concern," he added.

The IPL has hired private staff to deal with possible wrongdoings at the event underway in South Africa and Lorgat said the ICC doesn't have any issues with it as the home board, the BCCI, is fully responsible for ensuring that the event remains corruption-free.

"It is not dissimilar to county cricket, in that it is a domestic tournament, and the onus for matters such as anti-corruption and doping lie with the home board," he said.

[the article was originally published at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/007200904241240.htm]

Oriental Insurance expects about Rs 3 cr premium from IPL

NEW DELHI: The sole insurer of the much-hyped Indian Premier Leauge (IPL), state-owned Oriental Insurance Company Ltd today said it expects
about Rs 3 crore premium from the second season of T20 cricket tournament.

Owners of most of the teams have taken insurance cover for personal accident, terrorism as well as loss of baggage for their members, Oriental Insurance Company Chairman cum Managing Director M Ramadoss said.

"There are slight increase in the premiums this year... we expect premium to be around Rs 3 crore from various types of insurance cover that we are providing to players and organisers," he said.

The premiums have gone up in the range of 5-10 per cent depending on international conditions and reinsurance charges, he said.

The reinsurer for Oriental Insurance is the UK-based Lloyd's.

Insurance companies distribute the risk on large covers by going in for re-insurance.

Of the 8 teams playing in IPL beginning on April 18 in South Africa, he said the sum assured and the premiums vary from players to players.

Concerned at the security of the cricket teams, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shifted the second edition of the event to South Africa.

[credit : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Insurance-news/Oriental-Insurance-expects-about-Rs-3-cr-premium-from-IPL/articleshow/4391361.cms]

IPL’s exit sends out wrong signals to all

Only a reckless banker or a client-less astrologer will be willing to gamble their money and reputation on the outcome of the General Election.
But one thing is certain: if Congress performs poorly in urban India and fails to reap the harvest of youth votes it is banking on, a large share of the blame will go to the ‘munshis and managers’ who forced the T-20 IPL tournament out of India.

In the course of just one successful season, IPL had become one of the biggest global brands, comparable to Wimbledon and the football World Cup. The Central government chose to deal with this Indian achievement with the same bloody-mindedness it displayed in the allocation of 2G and 3G spectrum for the telecom sector. An outpouring of meanness drove the Nano plant out of West Bengal. Last week, P Chidambaram donned the mantle of Mamata Banerjee and forced IPL out of India. Like Mamata, who felt that Ratan Tata could be browbeaten because he was a hostage to money already invested in Singur, North Block proceeded on the assumption that the IPL was a helpless captive. And just as Tata had to cut his losses and resist blackmail politics, Lalit Modi inveigled IPL out of a desperate situation with a daredevil flight to South Africa.

The implications of IPL’s exile from India are awesome. There is, of course, the colossal loss of income for all those directly or indirectly involved in the cricket extravaganza — from humble vendors at the venues to the hospitality and travel industry. This, in turn, will have a bearing on government revenues which are already feeling the pinch of the slowdown.

But there is a more horrifying dimension which goes beyond accountancy. Chidambaram was being more than a little disingenuous when he argued that the IPL organisers were being unreasonable in putting entertainment above democracy. If it had been a case of adjusting the dates of a few matches to accommodate the policing arrangements for five different phases of polling, no one in the BCCI would have contemplated taking such an extreme step. The organisers agreed to add new venues such as Ahmedabad, Dharamsala and Raipur so as not to over-burden the administration of the metros. Gujarat, for example, accepted the offer of six games without any reservations; it had a problem with the date of a seventh match.

It is more than a little curious that the IPL faced resistance only from the Congress-ruled states. It was the firm no from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi that finally clinched the issue in favour of South Africa. In Delhi, where policing is under the direct purview of the Centre, even chief minister Sheila Dikshit was in favour of hosting matches. Yet, the police chief informed her and Delhi Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley that no permission would be forthcoming before, during and after the polling. As far as the Centre was concerned, IPL could go to hell.

The Government, it would seem, was intent on teaching the IPL organisers a lesson. Whether this was because of Lalit Modi’s proximity to Vasundhara Raje or prompted by a desire to deflate BCCI president Sharad Pawar is a matter of conjecture. Also, worth considering is the Congress Party pressure on the IPL to lift the total ban on political advertising at the venue and during the official telecast. Whatever the real story, there is compelling evidence to indicate that the government hostility was not prompted by national security imperatives. It can hardly be the case that terrorists were intent on targeting only Congress-ruled states.

The global message of the IPL flight to Africa is stark. India has sent out a loud and clear signal that the country is unsafe for any major event that involves international participation and crowds. The simple message: India is as dangerous as Pakistan.
India can only hope and pray that the world of global finance is mystified by cricket and fails to gauge the significance of the IPL fiasco.

If this self-inflicted ignominy is shameful, consider the other implication. India has proclaimed that it will respond to the terrorist challenge by running away from it. If terrorists target cricket, ban cricket; if terrorists frown upon a Rakhi Sawant Nite, deny permission to item numbers; and if zealots in Azamgarh want to impose an ideological veto on a political rally, meekly acquiesce. In an age of vote banks, this is called prudent politics.

No wonder, the latest batch of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists trying to cross the border carried T-shirts proclaiming ‘Jihad is my life.’ The army took them on frontally and did India proud. The vote-banker in the Home ministry would have responded differently. He would have banned T-shirts.

[credit : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/IPLs-exit-sends-out-wrong-signals/articleshow/4329083.cms]