Maybe I have misunderstood the issue somewhere along the line, but who is it who is taking the bets? I understand it's dodgy bookmakers etc setting the fixes up but who is actually taking the bet when they know it's certain to happen? Because surely if someone is making money, someone else must be losing it.
The way I understand it is that it's all about the illegal betting market in the sub-continent. Bookies put down odds on anything and everything, because it's illegal it is like the wild west, your average bloke on the street is placing bets on how many balls Lou Vincent will face with a bookmaker (who as mentioned previously is probably linked to Organised Crime), that bookmaker has been assured by someone up the chain that Lou Vincent will only face x balls and can therefore fix the odds accordingly.
Like CL said, Cricket is the absolute perfect sport for this kind of thing and plays into the perfect demographic world wide.