100 million Indian Fantasy Sports Users by 2019
June 21st 2018 16:02
Online fantasy gaming has experienced a massive boom during the year in India and is not set to slow down anytime soon. In 2017 the number of game operators was 30, but that has already doubled to over 60 during 2018, with the number of Indian gamers estimated to be at around 40 million. At this rate, that number could even overtake the US and Canada, who have around 59 million online sports gamers.
Cricket is obviously the most popular sport in India, and it is the same with Indian online gaming, as could be seen at the recent 11th edition of the Indian Premier League, with online gaming giant Dream11 taking up prime advertising positions for all the games. Dream11 even signed former Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni as the face of their gaming platform, making their product instantly recognisable across the country.
A few years ago, Dream 11 was the only fantasy gaming platform in India, but that number has now gone up to 70. This is when the need to form the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming was felt. IFSG is India’s first and only Sports Gaming self-regulatory industry body, which was formed to protect consumer interest and create standardised best practices in the industry.
According to Harsh Jain, Chairman of IFSG and Co-Founder and CEO of Dream11, “The biggest challenge was that people don’t care about regulations. So, it was a challenge to unite everybody for the greater good of the industry to grow it for everyone. If we want the government to govern this industry all of us have to work together and we are very happy to say that already 12 of the largest players in the industry have joined the IFSG. So it is picking up the pace”.
Fantasy gaming in India shows a lot of promise for the future, as studies have shown that if a player participates in one form of fantasy sports play they are about 80% more likely to consume other sports products as well, which can be seen by the recent rapid growth in Indian online gamers this year, from 20 million users in 2017 to the current estimate of 40 million.
Snoop Dogg Calls EuroMillions Winner ‘Crazy’
Global rap superstar Snoop Dogg has taken to Twitter to show what he thinks of the UK’s youngest lottery winner. On Saturday the superstar shared a New York Post article about the Scottish EuroMillions winner, Jane Park, who won £1 million at the age of 17. At one stage Park threatened to sue the lottery organisers Camelot because she claims the big win has ruined her life. Park once said “People look at me and think, ‘I wish I had her lifestyle, I wish I had her money.’ But they don’t realise the extent of my stress. I have material things but apart from that my life is empty. What is my purpose in life?”
Snoop re-posted the article about Park and tweeted “Crazy Chit”, which he shared with his 34 million followers. A chit is US slang for an arrogant young woman. Around 2000 of Snoop’s fans then responded to this tweet, with about 300 comments being written as well. Not to be outdone, Park shared the rapper's tweet to her own Facebook page with the caption “Drop it like it’s hot”. Unsurprisingly, Snoop and Parks are not Facebook friends and he did not respond to her Facebook post.
Global Lotteries
No big winners recently in the UK means the Lottery this week is a £17.2 million rollover, but with a big win on the EuroMillions, the jackpot is now at €17 million. Likewise, on the Powerball in the USA, a big win has taken this week’s jackpot to $40 million, while the Mega Millions main prize has grown to a massive $192 million, so a lot to play for in the international lotteries.
Written by Chris Brown