The discourse in this episode delves into the intricate world of cricket betting, with particular emphasis on the insights from our esteemed guest, Ben Brettell. He elucidates the rational underpinnings of successful betting strategies, asserting that a methodical approach, free of emotional influences, is paramount. Throughout our conversation, we explored the various facets of cricket betting, including the differences across formats, the importance of understanding odds, and the role of historical data in crafting informed wagers. Ben's extensive experience spanning nearly two decades provides a valuable perspective on the ethical considerations and potential pitfalls of gambling, underscoring the need for regulation and education in the betting landscape. As we navigate this multifaceted topic, listeners are encouraged to consider the balance between enjoyment and responsibility when betting on cricket.

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From PornHub to pitchside: how offshore betting targets women's cricket

Hello and welcome to the Last Wicket.

I'm your host, Benny.

Thank you for joining us.

And I'm joined, as always, by my co host, Mike.

Hey, Mike.

Hey, Benny.

And we have our returning champion, Ben Brett, back on the podcast.

Ben, how are you doing?

I'm really good, thanks, Benny.

Yeah, it's great to be back and good to see you both.

Yeah, good to see you and talk to you as always.

So how are you occupying your cricket watching time, Ben?

I know the IPL is on, but is there any.

I know the county cricket is going on.

Are you following that as well?

Been keeping an eye on the county championship.

Yeah, my.

My team is Somerset and we're actually doing quite well so far.

This thing is two.

Two wins and a draw so far, so top of the table, so, yeah, very happy about that.

Actually had the county cricket on YouTube because all the games are streamed live on YouTube and the IPL on the same time last week.

So it was dual screening for a bit.

That is a hard difference.

You know, I'm pretty much, pretty sure that the tempo and the vibes in county cricket is right now very different from what's going on in the ipl.

So how are you, as a viewer who's following both of them simultaneously?

How do you feel about that?

There's definitely a difference in tempo between those two things and the crowd and the excitement and the rasmataz.

I think, you know this, particularly this time of year, a Red Bull game at Taunton.

There might be, you know, three or 400 people in if you're lucky, and most of them are doing the crossword or asleep.

It's kind of.

That actually sounds like the perfect cricket watching experience.

Personally, I absolutely love it.

But I think one of cricket's great strengths is the variety in it and the fact that there's room for both of those things.

And we love it all.

Yeah.

Let's talk about very quickly before we get to the main topic of this episode, let's talk about something that we can all kind of be familiar with, the ipl.

You know, you being a IPL fan as well, what is your take on how everything has been shaping up so far?

I absolutely love the ipl.

It's one of my favorite events of the year.

I always look forward to it.

I think this year's been really absorbing and there's been some.

Some pretty insane moments as well.

I think overall, it seems like the batting has just been taken to another level again, to the point where the only way to win consistently is to absolutely obliterate it from ball one.

I noticed that the four teams at the top of the table at halfway are also the top four teams by number of sixes hit.

And that's not a coincidence.

I think historically even last year there's been room for a slightly more traditional approach.

Basically the Gujarat or the CSK approach of starting in a slightly more circumspect manner and then a fast finish if you've got wickets in hand.

But this year it seems like you just can't win doing that.

You need a Surya Vanche or a, or Abhishek to just strike at 200 from, from ball one.

Like I'm a little bit sad about that because I think, you know, the game that's just finished LSG and kkr, a low scoring thriller is I think always the most exciting game.

Oh yeah, that's my kind of game rather than the high scoring.

Yeah.

I mean that said the, the chase yesterday that Punjab pulled off was, was insane and that was, that was good to watch too.

But I think, you know, again variety is the spice of life.

If it's all 200 odd plays, 200 odd then it, it gets a bit boring.

Who, who's your team?

Which team are supporting?

I. I'm supporting Punjab.

Same as, same as last year.

Okay.

Partly for financial reasons.

I like them as a team.

I think they're really well balanced.

I think Ponting's doing, Ponting's doing good job.

I like the fact that they're not just made up of kind of big name stars.

Although many, many of them will be in the future I think.

And yeah, talking about the betting, I backed them, I backed them last year and I backed them again this year at 8 to 1 pre tournament and I see they're now 2 to 1 favorites.

And yeah, I think they a much shorter price from, from the start.

But yeah, so that's, that's my, that's, that's my team.

I like them but it's also slightly financially driven.

No, I honestly think this is their best chance in forever.

They just look well rounded, well led, seem to have covered all their bases and I'm honestly they are a good even for a neutral fan, you know, especially when my team is just terrible at the moment.

They are a very good team to back and I really hope they go all the way this year to win.

So.

Yeah, me too.

I would agree.

I, I think like they're one a good team to watch but also just, I mean I think it's time like all the franchises that haven't won in 19 years.

Finally catch up.

So this is as good as time as any for Punjab Kings for sure.

Hopefully Delhi will fix that record.

I have no hope.

With luck now and the way things.

Are going to probably be a few years for Delhi, I feel catching up to them.

I think the other thing I've picked up on as well is just this year the, the gap between the good teams and the bad teams looks, looks bigger.

Yes, it definitely looks like a table of two halves, like just where they are as a team.

They just feel like on two different levels right now.

Yeah, I mean LSG and KKR have both been terrible and today it was just like, yeah, both of those teams were desperate to lose that game and it was who tried hardest.

But I think that, and a big, you know, big surprise is that you can probably include Mumbai Indians in, in that list of terrible.

They do tend to finish better than they start, but they've been awful so far.

All right.

Yeah, I'm curious to see how it all shapes up.

We're already halfway done.

It already feels like it's been a long time since the tournament has been going on, but it always happens that way every year.

But yes, it is definitely shaping up to be an intriguing finish to the tournament.

As it stands now with the teams that are more most likely to make it to the playoffs and stuff, it just looks like it's just going to the, the most exciting teams and the strongest teams on paper.

So I'm looking forward to how it's all going to end.

But yeah, let's get into our big discussion for this episode.

All right, I'll take over.

So Ben, you already touched on it.

You mentioned Punjab Kings is was your pre tournament bet and that's really what we wanted to talk about, just betting on cricket.

I also read your blog around this and obviously this is something that you focus on quite a bit.

So yeah, I guess I'll just open the floor and ask you to educate us.

Yeah, I think so.

To start with, wanted to take a step back from cricket slightly and just give some background.

My approach to betting on cricket is very much shaped by my approach to betting in general.

I've been betting on sports fairly seriously for well, probably close to 20 years now and you know, with, with quite a bit of success.

Yes, it has provided a second income stream in, in many years.

So I've been doing it for a while and you know, with, with a reasonable amount of success and, and the key to, to my approach is just to try and be completely rational and and bring absolutely no emotion to the table at all.

So there's no kind of, you know, betting on any sentimental bets.

No chasing losses when you're losing or increasing stakes when you're winning.

It's purely the minute you bring emotion, you're in trouble.

So it's kind of rational decisions rule.

And I think the key thing to realize is that betting really comes down to just maths.

All you're looking for is situations where the odds don't reflect the true chance of something happening.

And obviously that takes a bit of expertise to know what the true chance is or be able to estimate well, the true chance of something happening.

And then when you see the odds are out of line with what you think the chances, then that's when you bet.

And the more out of line the odds are, the bigger your stake.

Which means that actually this is a sort of common misconception with betting that people think it's about backing winners, but it's not really true.

You're not really focused on the results at all.

You're focused on having the right bets at the right prices, and you kind of let the results look after themselves.

Does that make sense?

It does.

And I guess what I was going to say is the way you described it almost makes me feel like, you know, I've played a lot of poker.

So it almost reminds me of that mindset, you know, playing your cards and playing, not worrying too much about, hey, how does the opponent play?

And things like, I mean, obviously in poker you bluff, and so there's those aspects as well.

But essentially the, the idea is to sort of look at the odds and you're like, well, these are much better odds than what I had expected.

And, and then try to take a decision.

Can you, like, make that real for us with an example?

And, and I think Punjab Kings might be the perfect one to look at, considering what you just mentioned.

I think there's.

Yeah, there's two examples that I often use to explain this.

One is, is really simple.

Just imagine that you're.

You're betting on the toss of a coin.

So the true chance of it coming up heads is 50.

50.

Right.

So the odds should be evens.

If I offered you odds of 6 to 4 on ahead coming up, that's 2.5 in decimal odds about.

About ahead.

You should snap my hand off, right, because you know, there's value in that price.

Now, if it comes up tails, that doesn't mean it was a bad bet.

It just means that the result didn't go your way.

You you should have that bet again and again and again because you're betting something at odds that imply the chances is 40% when you know that it's 50%.

And if you make that bet a thousand times, you'll make a lot of money.

So that's the really simple example that I use and the other one is just from investing.

So we all know that you think of Apple or Amazon, we all know that they're hugely successful companies but winners in the stock market if you like.

But does that mean you should go out and buy Apple stock when the market opens tomorrow?

The answer to that is it depends on the price.

Just because it's a great company doesn't mean you should buy the shares at the current price.

If you overpay for a stock, the company could be super successful over the next five years and you don't make any money because you paid too high price to start with.

And it's the same, and it's the same in betting and in the, in the, the Punjab Kings example.

When I looked at that market I thought they should be probably joint favorites at around 4 to 1.

So when, when the odds came out and they were 8 to 1, I thought that's, that's an opportunity and that's that, that's exactly the type of opportunity you're looking for.

An 8 to 1 meaning roughly let's say 13 chance is what the market gave Punjab Kings to win it all.

I, I would, yeah.

Eight to one is a one in, is a one in nine.

A one in nine chance.

One in nine.

Okay, so about, yeah.

11, 12, 11.

Yeah, right.

Whereas I thought the chances were closer to 4 to 1 which would be 20.

Right.

Considering they looked like one of the, at least the top three teams if not the top two, you know, the way they've shaped up in general to this, to the season, what they've done last season, all of that, it makes a lot of sense that they, you know, you would back them as a top team.

Do you, how do you take that?

Like I, I think from a season perspective that makes a lot of sense.

But the one other thing about cricket, and particularly 320 cricket is the odds within each game vary so much.

Each venue is different.

You know, a team like Punjab, obviously they've been unbeaten so far, but even they will drop two, three games every season.

So how do you look at it from a game to game perspective?

I, I think game, game to game is probably, is probably where, and even within the game is probably where there are even more Opportunities where you can, you can spot where a price looks wrong because the market often overreacts to developments within a game or to say, for example, team news or even just sort of recency bias.

So previous recent results.

So it's interesting you mentioned the venue because that's the first thing I tend to look at.

So look at the historic scoring rates at a venue and also look at whether there's a bias towards setting or chasing a total and particularly filter for the type of game.

So it's a day game or a day night game or a night game, because the due can have more of an impact when the game's later in the day.

So looking at both of those things, you look at those two factors, that gives me an idea of what a par score might look like and also whether it's better to bat first or bat second and how strong that bias is.

And then I look at the form of the teams and their relative strengths and weaknesses and any kind of key matchups that I think might come into play.

And then finally, once I've made an assessment of the game, then I look at the odds as I think if you look at the odds first, then sometimes it can kind of, you work.

Your way into making.

Making that affects your judgment and you can start, kind of, you, you're starting with a price and working out whether that's right or not.

Whereas I, I prefer to make my own assessment and then compare it with the odds.

And sometimes that highlights more starkly any, any differences.

That's really interesting.

I, I think that's the piece that, you know, I, I also do options on stocks and again, not related to cricket, but when I do that, that's what I look at always.

I'm always looking at the price and I'm like, does that make sense?

And so to your point, I sort of back into it and then figure out if it makes sense rather than doing my own math.

You mentioned the things within a game as well, so let's talk about that as well.

So obviously there's betting on, the outcome of, you know, a game a season, as we've talked about already.

What are the other things that you can bet on in terms of.

Within a game?

Is it power play, score or things like that?

Also things that are pretty commonly bet on you.

You can bet on pretty much anything within a game from, you know, obviously the, the outright result, but from, you know, the runs scored or wickets taken by a particular player.

You can even, even runs that will be scored off a specific delivery.

There's A, There's a huge number of markets within any, any particular game.

The things that I tend to focus on apart from the outright winner are the highest power play score because I think that's quite an easy one to make A, to make a good assessment of.

You look at, you know, you look at the strike rates of the top three, look at how many wickets the opening bowlers tend to take and their economy rates.

You look at any sort of historical matchups and then you can, you can often work out which team will win the first six overs and then compare that with the, with the prices.

Obviously similar one is which team hits the most sixes.

That's, that's a similar one.

First innings runs.

I like that market.

So the, with that the market sets a line.

So where the, where that market settles is where, where the prediction is.

So say that line is 185 and a half.

Then you can bet either higher or lower on that line.

Okay, so that's not trying to specify the runs that will be scored.

It's more.

Will it be higher or lower than.

The set, will it be higher or lower than a set line?

And then that line actually moves.

That line will move during the game as well.

So you can do that, you can bet that during the game.

But I think that's a good one because that you can, you can really factor in conditions and if you've, if you've got a good idea of how the pitch might play and you can go, you can go into quite a bit of detail with this.

You know, at certain grounds there's some, there's some strips that are more bowler friendly or batsman friendly depending on where they are on the wicket and you know, red soil or black soil or a mix mix between the two.

So yeah, when you factor all that in, often the market hasn't quite factored it all in properly and you can, you can spot opportunities there.

So yeah, those are, those are my, I guess my favorite ones.

I don't tend to do player bets too often because I think it's, I think they're more for people who want like a fun bet of, you know, this player is going to top score in this, right in this match or in this innings or this player is going to score more than 30 runs or this player is going to get 100.

That feels to me like it's harder to have an edge in those markets.

I think it also requires some luck, you know, like for for example, Kale Rahul obviously did amazing just yesterday scoring 152 but he had a couple of lives so like there's a lot that has to go right for some of that to come off as compared to what do you mention, you know, betting on?

I think the chance of Punjab King scoring more in the power plays higher because well, they're just a lot more attacking than you know, Delhi Capitals as an example.

So.

Yeah, so I think that way the, the, the sense I get how you, you know, you're getting to that logic of let's look at the historic data, let's look at what the trends are and then make a decision whether it's worth betting.

Do you, I'm, I'm also curious like do you use any tools or have you, since you've been betting for so long, have you just had your own like spreadsheets or something to do, do calculations and get an idea?

Yeah, I keep my own spreadsheets and yeah.

Update them with the, the data from ESPN Quick Info and Quick Metric and all these other other sites.

It's sometimes difficult to piece together all the data but yeah, I tend to start with, start with that and then do my own analysis for, for each match and, and for each tournament and yeah.

Back to tournament markets.

I, I do really like some of the more obscure tournament markets, not just like India are going to win the World cup, but some of the slightly more detailed markets like I had a successful bet recently was on, on the World cup of India to hit most sixes in, in the World cup more than any other team.

The market priced them at 7 to 4 which was ridiculously high.

I think India were hitting a 6 every 11 bulls during that recent, you know, the most recent cycle.

I thought the chance of them hitting more sixes than any other team was closer to kind of 70 or 80 rather than the 30 odd percent implied by the odds.

So and, and they want, they won easily.

I think they scored half as many sixes again as the, as the next team.

Gotcha.

I have.

So I, I'm, I don't really have any knowledge about betting in general, sports betting and definitely not cricket betting.

So I'm going to ask questions which are going to sound really dumb, so bear with me.

So first question that I want to ask is have you considered using, especially in today's age, considered using AI to help determine essentially what bets you're going to take on?

I find the AI in, in general AI is a lot better at words than it is at maths.

Is is the first thing I would say.

I have experimented with trying to put prompts into AI related to betting and also to investing, actually.

And I'm, I'm not yet convinced that it's any good.

Okay.

But it's probably going to get there soon.

The way I think it's only, I think it's only as good as AI is still only as good as the person driving it at the moment.

So what prompts you put in.

And you'd have to, you'd have to put in an awful lot of data and then trust it to analyze it properly.

And I'm not saying it won't get there, but.

Yeah, I think the other, the other thing is that as soon as, as soon as bettors start using it, I would imagine the bookmakers would also start using it.

Yeah.

Regulation.

If they're not, if they're not already.

And given that you're, you're trying to find an edge where you think the price is wrong, if that, if that price is set by AI and then you're asking AI whether the price is right, it's hard to work out whether.

I think it's like.

Yeah, I think a lot of the prices are set.

So just going back a couple of steps here.

Prices in a market are often.

They're initially set by a bookmaker, often using an algorithm, and then they're shaped by weight of money in the market, supply and demand.

So they'll move according to supply and demand.

So what you're looking for already there is when a bookmaker prices a market for the first time, that's done by an algorithm.

So you're looking for your human knowledge and intuition and the sum total of all the data you've analyzed and all the information you have being better than their algorithm.

And then as the price moves, when money comes into the market, you're looking for your knowledge and your data and your analysis being better than everyone else's.

I think the supply, demand piece also really adds to it because let's say if everybody's using AI and everybody's, you know, okay at using it, let's say they are not great prompt engineers or whatever the right word is.

And they're just searching, you know, the same way they're all getting the same results and all betting on a certain way, that itself will change the supply and demand and the odds right then and there.

So it's going to be harder to track anyways.

Like, it will just depend on what entry point you're getting into.

I think it.

Yeah.

And it might, it might end up creating opportunities in that because everyone, if everyone's using the Same tools.

It's going to lead to that herd mentality where everybody's piling into potentially the wrong thing at the wrong price and then you can pick off the opportunities when you're convinced they're wrong.

It maybe means that there are fewer opportunities, but when they arise, they'll be bigger.

I think it's the same in investing.

I think that a lot of stock prices certainly now in the short term are driven by algorithmic trading and high frequency trading that is largely not driven by humans.

But in the long run it's more to do with fundamentals and I think betting is somewhat analogous to that.

So.

Yeah, that wasn't a silly question at all.

Benny, Good question.

Listen, somebody's thinking of it, okay?

The one, one thing I was going to also touch on is it sounds like you've been betting for a number of years and I also just, you know, searching around the regulations with that different countries have on sports betting and cricket betting in particular.

Sounds like the UK does have a fully legal regulated system and a pretty good market as well, I guess.

What are your thoughts on just how big that betting market is and what have you heard in your journey?

As you know, are you, are you seeing other countries also bet a lot or is it pretty much, at least in cricket, very much a UK driven activity.

I mean, I'm obviously based in the UK and completely focused on the UK in terms of where I can, where I can bet.

The market's huge here and quite liquid.

Like I checked about halfway through the LSG KKR game today and that had just, on the outright result market had over a hundred million pounds matched on it on Betfair.

So just one platform on one game that's happening in, in India.

Yeah.

So it's, it's a very developed a market in the uk.

It's regulated and licensed.

I think there's, we'll maybe come on to this later, but there's probably arguments for more regulation in some areas.

I know betting is huge in India despite it being illegal.

And I think that's where you, that's where it gets into slightly more dangerous territory if you like.

You know, you are unlicensed, unregulated operators who may also tend to be somewhat unscrupulous given they're making their money through an illegal activity.

And then they're mixed up in all kinds of other shady and illegal activities.

And it's easy to then see how that leads to match fixing, for example, or individual betters running into difficulties like, you know, running up debts to you Know, they can't pay back to somebody who you wouldn't want to owe money to and all that kind of unpleasantness.

So I think, yeah, it's, it's interesting.

That.

I would say prohibition doesn't really work.

It just sort of drives it underground and then you get all the, all the other nefarious activities that go with that.

Yeah, that, that definitely is a piece that I've, you know, been thinking about as I was preparing for this topic because looking at the sort of the regulations in different countries, it sounds like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have, have legal betting, but it's limited.

For example, I read in Australia there's no online betting, which didn't quite make sense to me in today's day and age.

And there was a bit of a phase couple of years ago where there was online gambling was probably a gray area.

I don't, I can't say was allowed at any point, but there are all these websites such as Dream11, MyCircle11, which allowed you to bet money, pick players, and they kind of combined a fantasy 11 idea with money.

So it wasn't just bragging rights that you would get.

He would actually put money on it and if your team did better, you could win a certain amount.

So they, they kind of used that as a loophole of saying this is not betting, this is more a game of skill.

So, and then of course there's all the other, many other countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, where it's completely legal.

So it's really a very varied market in terms of cricket betting.

And to your point, like UK definitely feels like the most settled and stable in terms of regulations and pathways to betting and just doing it regularly.

I, I definitely don't buy that.

That whole kind of dream 11 argument of kind of it's skill, it's not gambling because, you know, betting is a game of skill.

At least, at least it is if you're doing it right.

I mean, obviously there's exceptions to that.

Like, you know, roulette is a game of pure chance, but Right.

You know, betting involves just as much skill and, you know, analysis as something like, as Dream 11.

So yeah, I think that was a loophole.

And if the belief from the government or the regulator is that betting shouldn't take place, then also that shouldn't take place.

Yeah.

And the reason it got particularly tricky is because it wasn't just that they were the sponsor of the Indian team.

There were top Indian cricketers promoting things like that.

I think Saurav Ganguly was promoting either my circle 11 or maybe it was Gotham Gambir promoting that.

And they were doing it while they were part of bcci or Gambir was head coach and of course the Indian team was promoting a different company doing the same thing.

So it got very gray very quickly.

I think the issue with it, I mean, to your point, of course you could bet with a certain set of skill, but I think where a lot of people enter this habit, and that's, that's really my concern with betting in general, is it, it becomes addictive and, and there, where a lot of people get in is just the excitement of, hey, I could win.

It's not the logic that you're applying.

It's not like, you know, hey, I'm going to use this framework and then figure out if it's worth taking a chance.

It's more like a gambling mental.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's dangerous in the wrong hands.

I think, as you know, in the same way that something like alcohol is also dangerous in the right.

In the wrong hands.

You know, that's.

Think that there are huge problems which come with gambling and it's important that we don't minimize that, that issue.

You know, for many people, like speaking from the uk, you know, most people who bet, it's a fun pastime, they'll, they'll have 10 or 20 pounds on a, you know, an accumulator on the football on a Saturday.

And it just kind of, you know, adds a little bit of spice to the entertainment when they're watching the games.

And, you know, there's, there's no harm in that.

For a few, a few people like myself, it's a serious pastime and involving plenty of study and knowledge and, you know, larger sums of money.

And then for, for a few people, it's an addiction and just like alcohol or drugs, it can, can really destroy, destroy lives.

I've seen that firsthand.

I think the betting industry in the UK needs to get much better at protecting these people.

Back to what I was saying about maybe the cool, you know, there's a case for increased regulation and I think when it's, if you make it illegal like it is in India, that's when that harm can get magnified and you get kind of more shady stuff happening.

Yeah.

Remember the, do you remember the story a few years ago where there was a, there was a total, an entirely fake league set up in India for, for illegal gambling.

So they got a cricket pitch in a village in Gujarat somewhere, I think it was, and, and staged these games that were streamed on YouTube and they were just entirely fixed.

Like the umpires were telling the players what to do and most of the people betting on it were in Russia.

It's just entirely bizarre.

But, but really true.

Yeah, that's the, that's, that's the sort of thing that happens.

I think there's also an issue in the UK on the flip side of that, where the bookmakers are very happy to take money from problem gamblers and people who they know will lose in the long run.

But on the flip side of that, they very quickly restrict or close accounts that are held by people who are clearly using some degree of skill or knowledge or restraint with the, with the result that it's very hard for me and people like me to get bets on at all.

Yeah, and that's, that's an interesting one because I think the, the whole idea is, I think that that has been something that I've read across countries.

I don't think it's a UK thing where these companies are definitely pushing this on people who they know are not, you know, who are easily excitable or like.

It's the same thing with lottery in the U.S. for example, you will see a lot more shops selling lottery tickets in a poor income neighborhood than a, you know, rich neighborhood just because they, there's more chance of exciting people getting them tempted to buy whatever, a dollar a day, and then that ends up being, you know, becoming a habit.

And I think the same with betting shops in the UK as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean this is not a new business model anybody's found.

This has been done over and over again.

But I think the reason it gets way more dangerous now in my mind is the fact that it's so easy to access.

Like you can have an app on your phone and that makes it double E, triple E, as you know, dangerous because.

Yeah, if it's a shop down the street, sure, I can control myself by not going in or, you know, there's, there's ways to restrict that.

But having an app on my phone is so addictive that I personally, even for stocks, for example, not that I day trade or do anything like that where I, you know, trade every day, but it's Just on my app.

So I have a habit of clicking it every day and I look at my portfolio for no reason.

I really don't need to look at it more than once a week but.

But it has just become a habit.

It's easy to access and a lot of people in my friend circle who have, you know, heard about these apps and I'll talk about the US as well, they've all agreed that, yeah, this is incredibly addictive.

And this is like, you know, people like you and I, the people who are not taking random bets, who are thinking through where they're betting and all of that.

But even then they are, they agree that this is, it's extremely addictive.

And the other side of it is you win a couple of games, you make, let's say 50 bucks, you're not betting too much.

Then you're like, oh yeah, I'm just going to take a chance in the next four, but I've already won 50 bucks.

So there's that aspect and that mentality that also comes in.

Yeah, it's like the apps, same as social media apps.

They're designed by people whose job it is to make you spend as much time on that app as possible.

And they're very, very good at it.

So yeah, it's so much more accessible and much more dangerous now.

You know, back when I started betting it was, it was a case of taking actual cash to an actual shop.

And back in the back in those days, the shops weren't allowed to have windows because they didn't want people seeing inside and being corrupted by what was going on.

So you had to this sort of darkened, darkened shop with kind of blacked out windows and you had to go inside.

And then there's this kind of smoky world of people reading the racing post and putting bets on in cash behind the counter.

So there was some kind of a barrier to it, whereas now it's just on your phone 24 hours a day.

Yeah.

And I think if I talk about the US there's been two big companies that have come up in the recent years.

One is Kali and the other one is Polymarkets and both have.

I started using Kalshi.

I made some money on the ipl.

I will admit, not too much.

It was like few hundred dollars.

But I think as I started looking at some of their activities in detail, it was nothing but, you know, shady.

They allow people.

Actually Kalshree was the one trying to talk about how they are the responsible one because they don't allow betting on the death of a foreign leader, for example.

And I was like, that's a really low bar to set.

Firstly.

Yeah, but, but yeah, like that was why they were saying they're the better of the two available in the US and, and you know, they were.

Well, there was that.

There was also just the fact that they were able to work around a lot of regulation.

So it was, you know, very similar to the India method of, you know, call it, calling it a game of skill and not gambling.

They called it something else and not betting.

They.

I forget the terminology, but they, that's what they used.

And probably the one difference that's there is with Kaltry and Polymarket is there's no, you know, there's like you're not betting against a house, essentially.

It's not like poker or, or blackjack, rather I should say it's not like blackjack or roulette where you're betting against the house and there's a casino or you know, an organization that's supposed to.

You you're betting against somebody else.

And again, looking at the details, it was found There were about 700 accounts which won 90, 95% of the money.

And many of them happened right before many political events were happening and things like that.

Like an hour before the strike on Iran, suddenly somebody bet a bunch and cleaned the house.

So there was a lot of these shady business going on.

And it's.

Yeah, that's still happening.

Of course that.

No, nobody's stopping it.

But clearly a lot of people are starting to talk about it.

And then there is the whole coming.

Bringing it back, back to cricket.

You talked about, you know, shady organization starting and, and whatever franchise, franchise leagues, I'll say that in quotes, starting in India, for example, so that something similar was reported recently where they tried to do the same with women's curriculum.

They had an Agra Premier League which was apparently held in Delhi, which is, you know, not, not in Agra.

But the location is probably the last problem here.

The problem was they were just.

They found a ground at six games a day and they were telecast on pretty, pretty ordinary production quality.

And yeah, that was cast to half the world.

And people were betting on that across the world and included some Russian accounts and things like that.

So again, things started getting really out of control.

And I think this is where it stops being just the addiction habits.

Like to your point, of course, you, you know, anything in the wrong hands can be dangerous, but it also starts to corrupt the game or has potential to corrupt the game.

And that's probably something I want to talk about because this is not cricket's only, you know, touch with, with betting or any, you know, these things.

When we talk about spot fixing that has happened in the last 15 years more than once and has happened to international players.

So this is not something that can be taken lightly.

So I guess what are your, having said all that?

What are your thoughts around.

Yeah, the influence on the game and the power to corrupt it.

Maybe I'll start with that and get your thoughts.

It's interesting you mentioned polymarket.

I read an article on polymarket the other day in the Financial Times and it was, yeah, that stat around, you know, 70, 70% of the accounts are losers and 30% of them are winners.

And it's just kind of, you know, money that's in the know, taking money from people who don't know any better.

And then the same thing happening with these, you know, the, the fake leaks that we were just talking about.

It's like the, the people who are, it's, it's essentially a scam that's designed to separate unwitting people from their, from their money, which is obviously entirely unethical and should be legislated against.

And I think, you know, in terms of the integrity of the, the game of cricket, this whole match fixing thing has been, you know, that's, that's not a new thing either, is it?

You know, back to the, think back to the Hansi Cronier scandal where he.

Right, I can't remember what he, what he, he made out of that was a. Famously a leather jacket and I think some money that this bookmaker offered him.

And that was when he, he reached an agreement with, I think, I think it was Atherton who was the England captain, it may have been before that to declare both of them declare their first innings and just play a one innings game so that it wouldn't be a draw.

And obviously somebody made a lot of money out of that and then you've got the, yeah, the spot fixing stuff that's happened more recently.

I think the first, to me the first step is to, is to, to have the, to have betting legal and regulated just like alcohol because I think prohibition just.

It sounds good but you could, you're just driving it underground and then there's, there's no, there's no visibility at all then so more harm can be created at least in a, in a regulated market.

You can look at the market and you can see when, you know, most of, most of this fixing stuff gets caught because the regulators are looking at the market and they can see unusual market behavior and then that alerts them to the fact that there's something fishy going on.

Whereas if you can't see the market because it's underground, then you've got no hope of identifying it.

And I think the other angle, which I think the cricketing authorities, the ECB over here and BCCI, etc.

Are kind of on top of is, is just educating players at any professional level about the dangers of match fixing and you know, what to do if they're approached by a shady character with a suitcase full of money and how that, how you can be kind of sucked into that world.

As you know, a low level professional may seem like an attractive life changing sum of money.

But yeah, so I think those education programs are quite important and I think the other thing is just to kind of.

It doesn't make sense to me to have betting on games which aren't played by professional players in regulated leagues.

You know, you shouldn't be able to much as I probably would have a bet on my, my kids under 11 and under 13 game.

It's probably not a good idea.

Right now.

I think the, that, that's a pretty important point because I think the whole.

Well firstly the visibility is, is a pretty interesting point because that reminded me as you were mentioning the whole aspect of making betting legal.

Well, I think there was a game, I want to say maybe last year or maybe two years ago where in the Bangladesh Premier League.

So the BPL where there was one particular over that was just all over the place.

There were like so many wides and, and I remember Jared Kimber did a piece about that and talked about how there were some irregularities there.

Like I don't know if anything came out of that.

I don't, I can't remember the details.

But even a league like that, and to your point, Hansigronia national South African captain, his counterpart on the Indian side, Mohammed Azeruddin were involved in match fixing that happened in the late 90s.

International cricket is being walled in.

Spot fixing.

A World cup winner from India, Srishant be involved in spot fixing with the Rajasthan Royals and that included even the CSK's owner's son.

So the fact that the roots are so deep makes it all the more tricky because the whole franchise, you know, franchise system that, that has been set up, it's not a quick payday by any means.

Like even for the owners, they are investing millions and millions of dollars or crores of rupees, whatever it might be.

And they have to really wait to see that paycheck build.

So having shortcuts like these to have some sort of soft influence and make quick money is tempting for anyone.

So yes, education is important at a young age.

But, but my point is like that corruption can happen even to those who are already privileged and already among the money.

And I think we've seen enough examples of that.

So I think to your point of making it legal and making it visible is 100% true because then those one offs will probably stand out more.

But I think the other aspect is just regulation around advertising and promoting to, you know, communities which are, which are poorer or you know, have economic challenges or under 18 kids and things like that.

That is something that has continued to happen across the world where you know, for example, cigarette brands had in the late 90s and even before that had really done a, you know, good job of promoting cigarettes to kids in developing countries because there were lack of regulations.

And that led to Indonesia for example, having a large population of smoking teenagers.

And so yeah, just regulations around that is critical.

And then the last piece comes in where I feel like the ICC obviously has an anti corruption unit, but are they just waiting on, you know, a player coming up and saying hey, I was approached.

Hey, is making sure nobody's using cell phones during a game.

Is it just those regulations or are they actually monitoring these markets?

Like that is the question that I am unclear on.

But I think that is probably the final step in creating that, you know, ethical betting structure.

You'd like to think they were monitoring it.

I, I've always assumed that they do, but if they, if they don't, then yeah, that's kind of shocking.

So you know, that same with the stock market.

You've got bodies like the SEC that are set up to stop training and trading and securities fraud and all the rest of it.

And yeah, how they, how they spot it is by looking for unusual transactions and unusual market moves.

And I think, yeah, that has to be the same for fixing in, in sport, surely.

Absolutely.

But I guess the whole issue though is ICC's run out of Dubai, they're monitoring the game over all these different regulatory environments as we discussed.

UK being the more mature one, but others being in different phases.

India is probably the biggest market and all of the trades are in the black or the gray market.

And not visible then makes that job much harder.

Right?

Absolutely.

Benny, I know you've been listening in, wanted to, was curious on your thoughts as well in terms of where do you, where do you see betting in cricket or betting in general on sports heading.

And yeah, just the whole ethical aspect of it versus, you know, some companies taking advantages.

I think anytime there is the prospect of losing money, I'm always a little wary, which is why, you know, like I said earlier, I'm.

I'm not very familiar with betting.

I always just in my mind, I was always wondering how close or how similar it is to like gambling, like going to a casino and like, you know, trying to get some quick money.

So I've always been curious about how betting in general differs from gambling.

And in this conversation I, you know, definitely learned, you know, the nuances to it.

But Ben, I am actually curious about for some, you mentioned that you've been doing this for like 20 years, right.

And I'm curious about how you would advise someone who is interested in getting into this, but also wary that, okay, this all seems very overwhelming right off the bat.

I, I don't want to get into something that I'm going to look back and see that I've lost a lot of money.

But how would you guide someone or advise someone who's interested in getting into this?

And yeah, how would you kind of like, what would you suggest, like what kind of resources to look at and just get familiar with it?

I mean, I think the first advice I'd give anyone is, is never, never bet with money that you can't afford to lose.

Which sounds obvious, but it's, yeah, that's really important.

And then the second one is like, you don't have to, you don't have to bet straight away and you don't have to bet on everything.

So what you can do is you can think, you know, you can start by taking a month or two months or a whole IPL or something and think if I was betting, I would bet this and then look at the results that you would generate over a month or two months and see whether you're any good at it to start with.

And if you, if it turns out that you would have lost money, then maybe you need to refine your strategy before you actually play with, with real money.

Are there any resources like, I don't know either, like YouTube channels where people are talk about this, or podcasts or any other websites where people can get insights?

There's plenty of websites with betting with betting insights, but I think there's a, there's a kind of, there's an inherent trap in, in that is, is that a really important thing in betting is to know who to listen to.

And a lot of these websites are essentially, they're either designed to generate traffic and clicks and they have affiliate links to bookmakers who will pay them for clicks or accounts, or they're just selling their information.

Tips, stroke analysis.

And that's rule number one is don't listen to anyone selling tips because they're always con men.

So knowing who to listen to is important.

And you can't be an expert in everything yourself, but you can know people who are.

And over the years, I've built up a network of friends and acquaintances who are experts in various sports, from particular types of horse races to U.S. sports like NFL.

And we share information and I'm, I'm their cricket expert and they're my experts in those fields.

So you can kind of, you can build knowledge through trusted sources.

But I'd be wary of anybody that's kind of presenting tips at you, if you like, online because they're often, they're often doing it for, for reasons other than that they're, they want you to win money.

Well, not specific tips about specific bets, but just in general to understand how to go about, you know, getting into the world of sports betting and like understanding how it works.

And just like what you talked earlier about, like, it's the skill, there's strategy involved.

Just understand.

Yeah, I think, I think there's no substitute for experience and just doing it, but just kind of start small.

I think, you know, when I was first getting into betting, it was.

I was mostly betting on horse racing.

And I remember there being two or three really good books that I read that kind of taught you how to, how to do it and the principles behind it.

I can't remember what they're called now, but they're probably 20 or 30 years out of date by now.

They probably predate online, online betting.

But I'd imag.

I'd imagine there, there are probably good unbiased books that will kind of give you an overview and explain how it all works.

But in terms of.

That's explaining how the mechanism of the markets work.

But in terms of actually working out what to bet on, there's just no substitute for, for doing your own research and just building up your knowledge.

You know, it's.

It's far better to say you're almost only going to be successful betting on a sport that you know a lot about that you feel like a real expert in.

Yeah, this is a fascinating world.

And if, if you're not too familiar with it, I feel like you can kind of go Wrong.

So that, that's why I was just wondering about like if someone is interested, how would they go about getting that information and kind of dipping their toe in the water, so to speak.

But if you're worried about going wrong, then it's probably best to.

Well first it may be best to not do it if you're that type of.

Yeah.

You know, got an addictive personality or you're worried about whether you might bet more than you than you think you ought to.

I mean there are kind of tools on, on the apps where you can, you know, set a deposit limit that says you, you can only, you can only put £50 in a day or whatever to try and kind of self regulate.

But I always feel like if you need to use those tools then you probably should leave the whole thing alone.

Yeah.

Well, it seems like it has served you well over the years so you're a good endorsement for it.

I suppose.

So you should probably write something or post videos explaining this in more detail than you've done over the past hour.

Thank you.

But on that note, I think we can wrap it up.

And Ben, again, always a pleasure to talk to you on these episodes.

Please do come back.

It was very informative and I think for people who are interested to find more information we might post some links and you can, you can look, look it up.

I think we got a couple of articles too that you can find in our episode show notes for more information.

Yeah, I do write about betting on my sub stack so.

Okay people to check that out or just get in touch with any questions.

Happy to.

Always happy to speak to people.

We will link Ben's substack information crickinspo and yeah, we'll definitely include your handle as well.

But Ben, once again thank you so much for your time.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

It's been a pleasure as always.