Ahmedabad, 24 May 2013

In an interview to Gujarati news channel, Gujarat’s satta/betting/gambling king Dinesh Kalgi said that the real owners of celebrity “owned” IPL teams are underworld people who operate from abroad. Replying a question on Shahrukh Khan’s IPL team, he said such celebrities are selected to run the team by “real owners” who operate from out of the country.

Kalgi said, it is not any India based bookie’s job to do match fixing. He said it is the underworld that operates from Dubai, South Africa and Australia which is able to fix the cricket matches. He said while Cricket matches are fixed by underworld, football matches are fixed by mafias.

Kalgi said it is impossible to completely remove the betting practice. He said Yudhisthir lost entire kingdom due to gambling, and it was a great example for people, but gambling just didn’t stop. No one can stop it completely.

Whey asked why majority of those surfaced as persons involved in cricket betting are Gujarat based/Gujarati bookies, Kalgi replied that in Delhi or other regions people don’t pay, but in Gujarat people pay when they are needed to pay, therefore here the things are going on like a business.

Kalgi said bookies are not criminals, they are just businessmen. In Gujarat bookies run their show peacefully. If they make lose, they think “kamaa lenge”, and walk on, they don’t get into the violence.

Kalgi said that the bookies operating in various states send their collection to Mumbai, where underworld’s representatives receive it and send suitable sum abroad through hawala.