Online Betting in India: Overview
The online betting industry in India is growing at an unprecedented rate.
Despite legal challenges, online betting is a popular and widespread activity in India that’s taking place on a massive scale.
The exact size and scope of the online betting industry in India is hard to gauge at this point in time, due to the lack of any government regulator or agency tracking the industry.
However, all indications point towards online betting being a widespread and popular activity all over the country - and the market is estimated to be growing by a mind-boggling 20% per year, fueled by increased internet access and higher disposable incomes in all layers of society.
In this article, we will go through some of the most important facts and statistics related to the online betting industry in India, to give you a more clear idea about the scope of the industry.
Disclaimer
All information contained within this article is based on a collection of data gathered from the betting sites operating in India, along with our own website user statistics and general research.
Table of Contents
Online betting in India: Key Statistics
Profiling the Indian online bettor
Which sport is most popular for betting in India?
What are the most popular betting sites?
How many people are betting in India?
Why is online betting so popular in India?
Why is online betting growing so rapidly in India?
Online Betting in India: Key Statistics
- Number of people in India who bet regularly: 140 million
- Number of people in India who bet during major events: 370 million
- Total number of online betting sites operating in India: 37
- Most popular betting site in India: Bet365
- Most popular online betting activity in India: online cricket betting
- Most popular betting deposit methods in India: UPI, Paytm, and PhonePe
- States where online betting is most popular: Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra
Profiling the Indian online bettor
Let’s take a closer look at the people who are betting in India: their age, their gender, where they live, and more.
Online betting by gender
A whopping 88.4% of online bettors in India are men. Just 11.6% are women.
Even before we started researching this topic, we had a suspicion that men would outweigh women in the statistics - however, we didn’t expect the difference to be so massive!
Online betting by age
According to our research, young people are much more inclined to bet online compared to older people.
Of all Indian bettors, 44,6% are between the ages of 18 and 24.
32.5% are between the ages of 25 and 34.
So the vast majority of online bettors belong to the younger generation.
This makes sense because the older generation tends to be more conservative. They are also not as tech-savvy as the younger generation.
Online betting by location
Online betting is an activity that takes place all over India. However, online betting is generally centered in the larger urban areas such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and so forth.
We have also observed a tendency of less online betting in the northern and eastern states, as these tend to be more on the conservative side. In comparison, people are generally more liberal-minded in the southern and central Indian states.
The top 3 Indian states for online betting are:
- Telangana (18.7%)
- Karnataka (13.2%)
- Maharashtra (9.6%)
Online betting is most common in the South-Central Indian states
Interesting fact: Online gambling is banned in the state of Maharashtra according to the Bombay Wager Act.
Despite these restrictions, it is estimated that almost 10% of all Indian bettors reside in the state of Maharashtra.
Which sport is the most popular for betting in India?
It should come as no surprise that the most popular sport for betting in India is cricket.
Here on MyBetting, we can definitely confirm this, as we see traffic volumes on the site go up tenfold during major cricket tournaments, especially the IPL.
Other major sports include horse racing, football, and field hockey.
Most popular betting sites in India
The most popular online betting sites in India are:
These online betting sites have become the most popular due to the fact that they specifically target Indian players.
One of the ways they do so is by accepting Indian Rupees deposits via common Indian payment methods (UPI, PhonePe, NetBanking).
How many people are betting in India?
The short answer is: we don’t know.
There is currently no organization or entity that keeps track of the number of online bettors in India.
However, we can try to gauge this number by looking at the number of people searching for betting-related terms on search engines like Google. These figures are publicly available.
For example, there are around 15 lakh searches on the word Bet365 every single month. And that’s just one betting site. There are dozens of different betting sites and terms that people are searching for.
Therefore, we can reasonably assume that there are millions of new players joining the world of online betting in India every single month.
Why is online betting so popular in India?
The popularity of online betting in India is often attributed to the fact that physical gambling outlets and casinos are banned - therefore, online betting outlets are the only available venues where Indian bettors can bet on sports or other events.
Why is online betting growing so rapidly in India?
There are a number of important factors behind the growth of online betting in India.
A recent study by Deloitte India showed that the biggest driving factors behind the surge in online betting activity in India are: increased access to high-speed internet, increased access to smartphone devices, and a general increase in disposable income through the Indian population.
How big is the online betting business in India?
It is estimated that the Indian gambling market has a total annual revenue of around US$60 billion each year.
N.B: this number is an estimate - no government or other entity is accurately tracking the exact size of the Indian gambling market at the moment.
What is the future of online betting in India?
The future of online betting in India is very uncertain at the moment.
Although there have been some hints that the government wanted to regulate online betting on a national level, it seems that the motivation hasn't been there to perform the necessary political legwork that is required for such a massive operation.
At the moment, the best we can hope for is that younger generations with a more liberal attitude towards online betting will eventually convince the government that online betting should be legalised and regulated.
If the government realises that a large base of voters who support online betting regulations is emerging, we could see some action happen in this area very quickly. But for now, a big part of the population remains very conservative about the topic.
