Betfair is the most well-known betting brand across India. To get small to medium-sized bets down, the most common method is to use what’s called a “Skin” account. These are locally built exchanges using Betfair’s pricing and a multiple of the volume which is determined by your agent. There are some legitimate white labels of Betfair but there are many more skins that simply copy the Betfair price. These give their punters a pre-determined volume based on the depth of the market, and a win/loss limit.
The largest bets in India are executed via phone brokerage using networks of bookies and agents across the country. Cricket88 has access to the top of the largest and longest-running networks in India, meaning we can get the biggest bets at the best prices.
Bets on cricket can be up to 500L. Pre-match football bets up to 200L are possible and in-running up to 50 Lakhs. Pre-match tennis for the biggest tournaments can offer volumes up to 50L. Domestic Indian horse racing offers more liquidity than international racing, but both can be tough to get long term sharp action away.
Markets typically open within 45 minutes of match start time (but the big action starts around 5 minutes before). In-play bets can be executed on Skins with the same lag as Betfair’s main screen. Phone bets can be confirmed within ~15-20s.
Market manipulation was rife in the early days of the official Betfair Skins. Artificially inflating or deflating the price on Betfair “proper”, to then take advantage of the better price using the multiple in India, is much harder to sustain long term. Any bookies continually receiving such action will immediately close the account and settle, refusing any further bets. Unlike certain Chinese-facing sites that cancel huge swathes of bets, Indian books will cancel only the affected bets, close the account and pay out.
Cricket88 can help facilitate transactions in all major currencies and cryptos. Bets can be executed in INR, AED, USD or EUR.
All accounting and settlements are made on Monday mornings. Except if there is a large cricket match ongoing, in which case settlements are pushed to when that match has ended (possibly as late as a Wednesday).
Indians are typically only interested in betting on cricket. That’s why the volumes available are so big. But the football market can also be popular for the large leagues and tennis and horse racing are the only other two sports that have any meaningful liquidity for syndicates or operators.