MUMBAI, Feb 28: They’re swift. They’re stealthy. They work round-the-clock out of cars, posh apartments and even five-star hotels as India’s excitement over cricket reaches fever pitch in a land where the game is almost a religion.

Mobile phones tucked between head and shoulder and fingers flying over computer keyboards, bookmakers in India’s financial heart, Mumbai, track the flood of bets as the national team battles it out in the World Cup in South Africa.

Although illegal in India, betting has reached unprecedented levels in Mumbai since the World Cup began two weeks ago, police reported.

“The whole atmosphere is so charged,” said Shridhar S. Vagal, joint commissioner of Mumbai police. “It’s difficult to contain (because) bookies have become highly mobile.”

Betting is also rampant across the country. But in Mumbai, the stakes are much higher — at least $210m are bet on every match, said Vagal.

Vagal estimated the city has more than 100,000 punters and more than 100 bookmakers for cricket alone.

Careful not to stay in one place too long, the bookmakers use mobile phones in cars and vans. The bigger ones work out of posh apartments coding bets on computers. Some even check into five-star hotels to avoid suspicion.

Some 25 bookmakers have been arrested in a crackdown over the past two weeks but the sweep hardly created a dent in the business: the maximum fine is just 1,000 rupees ($21) and most of the arrested are released on bail, the officer said.

Indian bookies hit the headlines three years ago when allegations of match-fixing shook the cricket world.

Former South African captain Hansie Cronje, who died last year in a plane crash, admitted accepting $130,000 in bribes from bookies to influence matches.

After the scandal broke, Indian cricket authorities banned former captain Mohammad Azharuddin and Test batsman Ajay Sharma over match-fixing allegations after an independent inquiry into a federal police report on corruption in cricket.

They deny any wrongdoing.Mumbai police are particularly concerned about the power of the heads of organised crime gangs who have fled the country but run extortion and gambling rackets by “remote control”.

“Big-time organised cricket betting is run and controlled by these gangsters based mainly in Dubai and Karachi,” said a senior Central Bureau of Investigation official.

Besides raking in millions of rupees, the gangsters, some of whom are die-hard cricket fans, offer protection to big bookies.—Reuters