POSTED BY LOVER_BOY

Voice over willow. Style over strokes. Qazi Touqeer over Sachin Tendulkar.

With cricket popularity taking a beating, the betting scales have tilted towards the grand finale of Fame Gurukul, the talent hunt-and-groom show on Sony. More money is being traded over the fortunes of Rex D'Souza and Ruprekha Banerjee than the futures of Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

From the bylanes of Mumbai to the towers of Dubai, the odds have been spelt out and the SMS votes (4.5 crore and counting) have been flowing freely to choose the first Fame Jodi. The winning duo will be declared in tomorrow's episode of the show, which is expected to top the climbing TRPs of recent weeks.

For a nation known to bet on everything from most sixes hit to the score in the first 15 overs, putting money on a musical programme is still very new. It all started with Indian Idol earlier this year where one of the finalists, Rahul Vaidya, claimed to have lost out to a betting scam based in Dubai.

On the original international versions of these talent-hunt shows like Pop Idol and Fame Academy, however, betting is a more public phenomenon with brokers like William Hill and Ladbrokes putting up odds on their websites.

But those in the loop of the betting circles do know the odds for choosing the top two from the three finalists. Kashmir boy Qazi — with his trademark golden locks — and Bengal girl Ruprekha — with her sweet smile — are the favourites with betters getting 30 paise for every rupee.

For those picking Qazi and Mumbai boy Rex, a rupee would earn them 70 paise. And the jodi without Qazi (Rex and Ruprekha) is the least likely to win and gamblers stand to gain Rs 2.50 for every rupee placed on them.

"The odds are decided on the kind of votes the three contestants have been getting right through the competition," reveals a "player" in Mumbai. "Qazi, for example, has got the highest number of votes all along, grossing more than half of the total votes that the show has netted. So, he is sure to be in the winning jodi and features in the top two odds. Ruprekha emerging on top last week has put her right up there with Qazi as the jodi tipped to win."

The bookmakers, though, are at it again, trying to make a kill by upping the vote-count of the least favoured jodi. According to The Telegraph's sources, while the Qazi-Ruprekha duo was indeed leading the race till late on Wednesday (the phone and message lines are open till 4 pm, Thursday), the Rex-Ruprekha pair was steady catching up.