ICC vows to crackdown on live betting to ensure corruption-free CWC

In order to try to ensure a corruption-free Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the International Cricket Council (ICC) vowed on Friday to clamp down on live betting, and anyone caught breaking the rules would be barred from the whole tournament.

Live betting or pitch-siding involves gamblers at sports events gaining an upper hand on other punters by taking advantage of the short time-lag, usually a matter of seconds, between play and live international broadcasts on television.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, head of the ICC's anti-corruption and security unit, said that the issue went far deeper than a few clever people getting one over on betting shops, adding that he believes the risk is that this feeds into a wider and more sophisticated network of illegal betting, often in the Indian sub-continent, Sport24 reported.

Though gambling is mostly illegal in India, but betting on cricket matches thrives through networks of underground bookies.

Flanagan said that facilitating people to either bet on events which are then known events or in terms of illegal bookmakers adjusting their odds to know they should be shortening the odds on something, he believes that's where it is a risk of being some sort of minor contagion.

At least three examples of pitch-siding have been reported during the southern hemisphere summer, with one man thrown out of two Twenty20 Big Bash League games and another ejected from the first match of the ODI series against India, the report added.