New Delhi, June 6: Raj Kundra, a co-owner of Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals, has admitted during interrogation to betting in the "last two-three years," claims the Delhi Police. 

Kundra and his wife, actor Shilpa Shetty, are two of the four owners of the IPL team.

The police also says that Kundra's business partner, Umesh Goenka, who was questioned recently claimed that Ms Shetty also gambled on the domestic Twenty20 tournament.  Sources said that the accusation had not been corroborated during the police's investigation so far. 

Kundra was interrogated for nearly 10 hours on Wednesday  by the Delhi Police and allegedly revealed that he placed bets on his own team.  The Delhi Police chief Neeraj Kumar said that Mr Kundra "lost a huge amount of money through betting."

Betting on all sports except horse-racing is illegal in India. 

The Royals are the centre of a massive spot-fixing and illegal gambling scandal which erupted last month with the arrest of three of its players including S Sreesanth.  They have denied charges that they took money from bookies to deliberately bowl badly during pre-determined overs.  

Rules of the Board of Control for Cricket India (BCCI) dictate that anyone affiliated to a team can be suspended for two to five years if they are found guilty of betting. Guidelines for IPL team owners also stress that a franchise can be terminated "if the owner acts in a way that brings disrepute to the IPL."

Sources say the Delhi Police is unlikely to book Mr Kundra for gambling, which is a bailable offence. The police says it wants to focus on establishing links between bookies and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's crime syndicate or "D Company."

To prevent him from leaving the country, Mr Kundra was made to hand over his passport to the Delhi Police yesterday.