New Delhi: Experts have urged for regulation of betting in sports through appropriate laws as the betting market in the country has acquired the size of Rs. 300,000 crore. They have also called for stringent laws to curb fraud and doping in sports.

This was the consensus resolution at the conclusion of the two day 'Conference on Regulating Sports Betting and Sports Law' organised by FICCI in New Delhi.

Mohan Parasaran, Solicitor General of India in his key note speech during the session on 'Threat to Integrity of Sports: Match Fixing and Doping' said, sportsmanship and level playing field are ubiquitous qualities attributed for moral, fair and following of ethics in all countries. There has been extensive discussion between law ministry and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports on drafting modern law on sports ministry and there have been suggestions to bring standalone legislation on the subject. The Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill, 2013, is a step in this direction.

This is a comprehensive bill for preventing sporting fraud and to combat frauds in relation to domestic national land international sporting event. This bill has been drafted after studying the laws of different countries especially from European Union like Denmark, Finland, Germany etc. Australian model is so far the best. To make own strong and affective sports law for India, different aspects from different laws has been adopted. There have been serious deliberations on insider information and sporting fraud, manipulation or attempt to manipulate a sports result (s), irrespective of whether the outcome is actually altered or not, will be a jail crime. Punishment for different categories of offenses with fine up to 3 to 5 times the economic benefit derived from the guilty is mentioned in the bill.

Soli Sorabjee, Former Attorney General of India in his address during the session on 'International Efforts to Curb Sporting Fraud: Information Gathering, Regulatory Structure, Criminal Law and Courts' said, "the betting is a natural human instinct which is inherent to human beings, it should not be denied and time demands that it should be discussed seriously to come out with the solutions to match fixing.”

Arjuna Ranatuna, Former Cricket Team Captain, Sri Lanka said, “There is need for creating awareness and sensitize players on the consequences of doping and other sports frauds. According to him, normally match fixers don’t catch top players but look out for small fishes in the top teams. On doping he added, players coming from rural areas are not aware about the ill effects of doping and are innocent. So they need to be sensitized about various drugs and their consequences.”
 

KTS Tulsi (Senior Advocate), Supreme Court of India, in his key note address during the session on International efforts to curb sporting fraud: Information gathering, Regulatory structure, Criminal Law and Courts said, “After the IPL fiasco, there is a big hue and cry regarding the amendments in the sports law and inclusion of issues such as criminalization of sports, invoking criminal law for match fixing and betting and strengthening of anti- doping laws but, in an effort to clean up sports, sportsmen should not be made a scapegoat. Criminal law should be invoked only where a guilty intent is proved and players should not be liable of match fixing and doping on mere presumption. There should be strong evidence to prove a player’s involvement as once an allegation is made in the media, it has a tendency to stick even in the absence of any proof and the player falls victim to a media trial even before being declared guilty by the courts. At, the same time, legalizing betting would be a step in the right direction as this will ensure transparency and lead to removal of corruption from sports, which is the need of the hour.”