Indian Premier League chiefs cancelled a mobile phone SMS contest on Tuesday following accusations from the government that it encouraged gambling and betting. "There was no formal complaint, but sports minister's views were taken into account and the organisers have withdrawn the game," IPL governing council member Rajiv Shukla told the Press Trust of India.
Sports minister Manohar Singh Gill had on Sunday lashed out at the contest in which participants won cash prizes for correctly guessing the sequence of runs scored in the subsequent over of the match. "I see the commercial use of cricket for business gains that is going on," Gill, a former federal chief election commissioner, said in a statement.
"I am concerned about the latest venture of encouraging viewers to make ball-by-ball predictions of runs scored for economic gain in the shape of cash prizes. "This is viewed as openly encouraging gambling and betting which official bodies do not resort to, even in countries where betting is legal - all this to make money and enlarge their TV viewership base." The IPL, plagued by dwindling viewership across India after the tournament was shifted to South Africa for security reasons, ends on May 24.