Every Christmas when the money market slows down, bond dealers turn to quizzing on their trading screens. But a new passion has hit dealing rooms in banks and bond houses: fund managers are betting furiously on cricket. With the bull run in the bond market winding down, they are turning bookies to perk up somnolent treasury rooms.

On Tuesday morning, ahead of the second one-day international between India and Pakistan, the two-way quote on the aggregate runs to be scored was 620/630. A dealer who bet on 630 made Rs 260 (Rs 10 for every run scored over 630) as the total runs scored was 656.

Most of the bets were on the runs scored by either team in the first 15 overs and the last five overs as well as the total runs scored by the team that batted first.

There was a lot of interest in Sachin Tendulkar's individual score too. Here the two-way quote was 60/70. In other words, those who bet on 70 made a killing as Sachin scored 141.

"There were few takers in the dealing room for a century by Tendulkar," said a bond dealer at a foreign bank. "The scene has changed dramatically. We expect a lot of bets on a high score from him on Friday," he added.

"Most of the bets were on runs as the scope for betting on wickets taken is limited. Like any other money market deal, we have been following two-way quotes for cricket too. Whoever accepts the lower side is 'in money' and wins if the runs scored are below that level, while the other person is 'out of money' and makes money when the runs scored are above that level," said another dealer.

Bond dealers started playing this game during last year's Cricket World Cup. But with the excitement over the Indo-Pak series soaring, the practice has become rampant in dealing rooms. It is spilling over from the intra-bank market to the inter-bank market. No dealer, however, keeps an official record of this.

Betting is more prominent in a day-night game in the sub-continent because by the time the match starts, activities in the dealing room come to an end. The "income" generated from the betting game goes to individual dealers and not the bank.

Since the bets are as small as Re 1 to Rs 10 per run, there is no way this income can compensate for the drastic drop in dealers' bonus, which will take a hit this year as profits on bond trading are moving southwards.