Pamala Serena, one of the contestants on the second season of the Hindi-language reality show Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa, has disclosed on camera that she placed bets on cricket matches while she was a student in London, using what she described as inside information passed by a friend with contacts among professional cricketers. The confession came during the show's most recent Judgement Day episode and was followed within the same episode by the elimination of fellow contestant Harshad Chopda.
The episode aired in the regular Netflix India slot of 8 PM on the show's standard Saturday-to-Thursday schedule. Pamala, who first rose to public attention through the Netflix India series Desi Bling, was named to the bottom three alongside Harshad Chopda and Sufi Motiwala before the elimination vote. Her account of the betting activity took up a substantial portion of that segment, and was the most prominent personal disclosure from any contestant since the season began.
What Pamala said about the bets
In her on-camera account, Pamala said that during her student years she had been introduced to a friend who, in her telling, was close to several professional cricketers. That friend would pass on information about who was expected to win a match and how many runs a player was likely to score. Pamala said she used those details to place bets with London-based bookmakers and that she "made a lot of money" over the course of the activity.
She estimated the betting ran for a few months before the people involved were caught, though the episode did not specify which authorities acted or in which jurisdiction. Pamala also acknowledged that betting on cricket was legal in the United Kingdom at the time, while characterising the activity itself as "the wrong way" to make money. The full exchange was broadcast without bleeps in the version of the episode reviewed by The Indian Express; Netflix India had not issued a clarification at the time of publication.
UK rules at the time allowed licensed bookmakers to take bets on cricket, including on individual player performances, subject to anti-money-laundering and customer-due-diligence checks. Placing a bet as a customer was not, on its own, illegal for an adult in England and Wales, although the situation would change if the bettor were found to have used privileged or corruptly obtained information in the manner of a betting offence under sections of the Gambling Act 2005. The episode's framing did not reach the level of legal detail that would let a viewer distinguish the two.
How the episode moved from confession to elimination
After Pamala finished her account, the episode returned to its elimination mechanic. Harshad Chopda and Sufi Motiwala were named alongside Pamala in the bottom three and faced a contestant vote. The Indian Express report on the episode records that the other contestants voted Harshad Chopda out. The article also notes that both Harshad and fellow contestant Yogesh Rawat were expected to return to the show the following week through a challenge involving Sufi Motiwala and Dheeraj Dhoopar.
That mechanic — a voted eviction followed by a stated re-entry path the next week — is consistent with the format changes that producers introduced earlier in the season, in which eliminated contestants have been brought back through head-to-head tasks. The article does not specify the precise challenge structure or the conditions under which the re-entry would be confirmed.
The betting law framework that the comment touches on
Two distinct questions sit underneath Pamala's account. The first is whether betting on cricket is legal in the place where the bets were placed. In the United Kingdom, regulated bookmaking on cricket has been permitted for decades and is supervised by the Gambling Commission. Customers placing bets with licensed operators have not, in general terms, committed an offence by virtue of placing the wager.
The second question is whether the source of the information used to place the bet matters. Under section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005, it is an offence to use inside information for betting where that information is not publicly available and the person using it believes it was obtained in breach of confidence, or through an act that could constitute an offence. The episode did not present evidence on how Pamala's friend obtained the information, only on the fact that the friend passed it to her. That gap is important in any later assessment of the legal position, and it is one of the reasons that similar disclosures on broadcast programmes are usually followed by statements from regulators rather than by direct charges.
India's own legal position is materially different. The Public Gambling Act of 1867 prohibits the running of a "common gaming house" but does not, on its face, criminalise the act of placing a bet. Several states have their own legislation: Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and a number of other states have moved in recent years to restrict online betting platforms, while others permit licensed sports betting through state-run operators. The episode did not suggest that any Indian bets were placed.
For viewers watching the show in India, the practical takeaway is that the disclosure relates to bets made in a different legal regime. The Indian Express report does not record any reaction from either the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) or from the country's cricket integrity units to the segment. Past episodes of the show that have touched on controversy around a contestant's previous conduct have generally been left to the audience to interpret; this one has followed the same pattern so far.
Where this fits inside the season
Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa has run on Netflix India since its first season in 2022, hosted by Kangana Ranaut. The show places contestants in a jail-themed set under continuous surveillance and uses weekly Judgement Day episodes to nominate and evict participants. The current season has already seen a steady rotation of contestant arrivals and departures, and the producers have leaned on personal disclosure — about careers, family histories and previous controversies — as a recurring structural beat. Pamala's betting disclosure fits that pattern more closely than it breaks it.
Desi Bling, the series that brought Pamala to public attention in India, was a Netflix India lifestyle and fashion property rather than a sports production. Her appearance on Lock Upp 2 is her first extended reality-TV run since that show, and the producers have positioned her as one of the more recognisable faces in the current house. The episode's structure — a long personal disclosure followed by an elimination vote — gave the segment the kind of weight that other contestant confessions have not always received in earlier weeks.
The episode's elimination sequence was, in production terms, straightforward. After the bottom three were named, the vote among the remaining contestants was conducted in the format the show has used all season. Harshad Chopda's name received the majority of votes, and the host confirmed his exit. The post-credits teaser referred to the following week's re-entry task involving Sufi Motiwala and Dheeraj Dhoopar, with the eliminated contestants returning for a chance to re-enter the house. Whether that mechanism takes place as described will be visible when the next episode streams.
What the show did not address on camera
Several practical questions remain unanswered by the broadcast itself. The episode did not name the friend who supplied the information, did not specify the bookmakers used, and did not give any figure for the amount Pamala said she won. It also did not identify the professional cricketers whose information she said the friend had access to, or whether those cricketers were aware of how the information was being used. The framing of the disclosure as a personal confession, rather than as an evidence-led claim, means that the show has left each of those threads unresolved for now.
It is also worth noting that the disclosure appeared on a programme whose production is overseen by a regulated broadcaster in a market — India — where the rules around what can be said about sports betting on screen are themselves tightly drawn. Netflix India's compliance team would have been aware of the script in advance of the broadcast. The decision to air the segment without redactions, and the choice not to add a contextual note in the episode itself, suggest that the producers treated the material as personal history rather than as actionable evidence of a current offence.
How readers in India can follow the rest of the season
Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa streams on Netflix India on the regular Saturday-to-Thursday 8 PM schedule. Harshad Chopda's eviction and the announced re-entry challenge for the following week mean the next episode is the one to watch for confirmation of which contestants return to the house. Pamala Serena remains in the competition for now; the betting disclosure did not, by itself, trigger any formal mechanism under the show's rules.
For readers who want to keep up with the broader coverage of how cricket and other sports interact with on-screen entertainment, the rest of the sports news desk runs reporting on both the on-field action and the off-field storylines that surround it.
Reporting note: Episode details, elimination sequence and contestant statements reflect The Indian Express report dated 26 July 2026. The Indian Express body was accessed through its official WordPress API. Broadcast schedules and on-platform episode mechanics can change without notice.