Gambling on cricket and the IPL

One of the exciting things about sports gambling now that sports gambling online is so readily accessible is the range of sports we can now wager on throughout the year. Professional sport is now a worldwide activity to such an extent that the traditional seasons are no longer a factor in sports gambling. Take for example gambling on cricket, not historically one of the top sports gambling activities in Ireland but with international cricket being played almost every day throughout the year cricket gambling does have its appeal. There have of course been a number of high profile scandals associated with gambling on cricket over the years, but these have generally been confined to Indian cricket and the authorities there are now well aware of the damage these incidents have inflicted on their favourite sport and are less tolerant of the cheats and the rogue bookmakers involved. This week we have seen the auctions for the Indian Premier League teams to contest the IPL this year, and this twenty20 format of the game has undoubtedly become the favourite cricket gambling format all over the world, including Ireland. Cricket in this part of the world has suffered a little recently from the lack of terrestrial television coverage of the game, particularly test cricket, but the shortened versions of cricket are much more television friendly particularly the twenty20 games and have therefore provided a boost to cricket gambling everywhere. The real money is of course still very much centred on India, as we have seen in the prices paid for the top performers such as Kevin Peterson in the IPL auction, and this is completely understandable in a part of the world where sports gambling is almost entirely confined to gambling on cricket, but there will be many people in Ireland following the IPL with equal interest.