PESHAWAR, Feb 16: The bookmakers have become active in the city and opened several secret betting centres since the beginning of the World Cup being played in South Africa.

The bookies are encouraging people to stake money on cricket matches and for that purpose they have opened many centres in their houses from where they fix the matches on telephone. The prize bond number dealers have also diverted their attention to another illegal practice of bookmaking.

The areas where the bookies run their illegal practice include Chowk Yadgar, Gulbahar, Gulberg, Kuchi Bazaar, Karimpura, Qissakhwani Bazaar, Faqirabad, Nauthia, Hayatabad and many streets on Grand Trunk Road.

The bookmakers phone numbers are openly available and even these are written on the phone booths.

These bookmakers fix rate for every single ball of a match and the team potentially winner occupy less rate.

In some areas of the city big screens have been placed to attract the public for betting. Even one cinema house in the city is showing cricket matches on big screen.

Some influential people are involved in the illegal practice and are running these betting centres with the connivance of the local police, as they get their own share from the stake money, said a teenage fixer.

We bet through telephone contact with the bookmakers, who also inform the fixers time to time about the current change in the rate of both the playing teams, he maintained.

After every ball the rate on a teem comes up and goes down, so the fixer all the time remains in touch with the bookmakers on phone and tries to find opportunity to counter bet and save their stake money, he said.

He said that there was no big bookmaker in the city. All of them just get five per cent profit and then fix the money with big bookmakers in Lahore and Karachi. He opined that millions of rupees were put on stake on every match of cricket in the city.

It is not important as Pakistan are playing the match or not. The fixers bet on every match. We pay and receive the stake amount after the end of the match, he added.

A good number of people, including students, are putting millions of rupees at stake. A considerable number of them had lost their hard earned money in the practice.

It is interesting to note that despite the official ban, which endorsed immediately by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government after came into power, but both the ruler of religious parties alliance and law enforcement agencies failed to curb the illegal practice in the city.