``Mera Sri khaya 10,000 mey,'' is the reply from a man in a nondescript apartment in Ahmedabad, which surprisingly has a number of telephones.

``Abhi kya bhav hai?'' asks the caller.

``Ind liya 30 paise aur Ind khaya 130,'' is the reply.

In the well-knit world of cricket betting, the argot is made up of words like liya for winning, khaya for losing, Ind for India, Sri for Sri Lanka, and fixed code names for the punters -- the KP Navrangpura, for instance, could be a Kirit Patel or Keshavan Panikkar of Navrangpura.

With India's chances in the World Cup looking up, more and more punters are staking their money on the outcome of matches. Getting hooked to the network was never difficult. It isn't now. All one needs to do to play satta, as the Gujarati term for betting goes, is be introduced by someone who is a regular with the bookies.

First of all, the contact will get the new punter a code name and teach him the terms. He will also give the newcomer bookies' phone numbers, since most betting is done over the phone. Says Sub-Inspector Omprakash Shivnani of the Ahmedabad crime branch, who is in charge of investigations into betting, ``Once a punter is given a code name, he needn't worry about any account going wrong. Except, of course, when we step in and break up the ring. The bookies, who are extremely sharp, will recognise him even by the way he speaks, his voice!''

The contact's reference is all-important. This is to assure bookies that a new punter will not default on payment if he loses a bet. Trust is all-important as money does not change hands when the bet is placed. Only the day after the outcome of the bet does an agent reach the punter's house, either to pay him his winnings or collect the amount he has lost. If a loser refuses to pay up, he is at once black-listed. None of the bookies will ever accept a bet from him.

Bets are placed on all conceivable variables in cricket matches, not on win-lose outcomes alone. How much will Sachin Tendulkar score? Who will win the toss? The number of wide balls in a match, wide balls bowled by a particular side or bowler, the weather anything is grist to the betting mill.

The odds keep changing as the matches progress. For instance, the odds for the India-Sri Lanka match opened at 80 paise: 130 paise, but changed as India built a massive lead. Says Chirag Pathan (name changed), a Vadodara bookie, ``Bookies in Gujarat are constantly informed of the odds over the phone by those in Mumbai. Bookies in Mumbai get the odds from those in Delhi, who in turn get it from London.''

The changing rates mean anxiety for the punters. They frequently make calls to change their bets as the rates change. Bookies keeping track of the bets have a hectic time. ``There's no time even to drink tea,'' says Pathan. But then, that's business! It's big business, too. In Ahmedabad, transactions worth Rs 1 crore are made daily, while in smaller cities like Vadodara and Rajkot, the turnover could be Rs 60 lakh-80 lakh daily.

And who are the punters? Most of them are from the middle class -- small businessmen, clerks and officials, shopkeepers, traders. The main betting rings have set minimum stakes, and this keeps the lower middle class out. In Ahmedabad, bookies say the minimum stake is Rs 5,000; in Vadodara, it is Rs 1,000.

However, there are numerous informal betting rings, organised by friends, business associates, acquaintances, cricket fan clubs. In the pols, several people operate their own networks. These networks -- in which the stakes are small -- aren't linked to the main ones, and go by the name dabba or dablu.

Then there are punters of a special kind, who bet only on dark horses, for which the stakes are extremely high. Nisarg Shah (name changed), a punter from Vadodara, says they are called khavana par lagavnar.

The punters have made good use of technology. More than telephones, they are relying on cellphones, which, when used with pre-paid cards, make it extremely difficult for police to trace calls. ``Most of us now use cellphones. And some even go out of city limits to make calls,'' says Pathan. Then there are bookies who use the Internet to good effect.

This makes the fight difficult for the short-staffed police. They rely on informers for cracking down on rings. Says an officer, ``But when we raid a den, all that we find are some phones, papers with code names and numbers on them. No cash!'' Since, running gambling rings is a bailable offence, the bookies get away. Even if convicted, they face a penalty of Rs 2,000 or three months' simple imprisonment.

That's hardly much of deterrence. So the rings, it seems, will keep on operating. There's no dearth of punters.