Betting in India has been a contested topic since the days of colonisation.Although betting was largely tolerated throughout the Indian subcontinent before British colonisation, our occupiers sought to impose their morals on our people and made betting illegal in India through the Public Gambling Act of 1867.
To this day, public betting remains illegal in India, however, online betting is an activity that is largely legal throughout the country, so long as the online betting sites follow a few basic rules, such as being based outside of India and accepting Indian rupees.
With that said, there are a few Indian states which are pushing back against the growing trend of online betting by attempting to more or less prohibit the practice within their state boundaries.
But despite the attempt of some states to prevent people from betting online, the trend is growing with such momentum that it’s getting harder and harder to stop online betting with each passing day.
In this article we will look at the different factors that are contributing to the popularity of online betting in India, and why we believe the eventual legalisation of online betting in India is now inevitable.
Online betting is more accessible than ever before
One of the main reasons as to why online betting in India is unstoppable, is the fact that it has become so incredibly accessible.
Just a few years ago, online betting was almost totally inaccessible to all but the most determined players.
First of all, there were very few online betting sites that accepted Indian players, and those that did accept Indians had a very limited selection of payment methods.
All that has changed, and online betting has become more accessible than ever, for reasons which we will look deeper into below.
Increase in mobile phone ownership
Mobile phones (especially smartphones) used to be reserved for people on the higher end of the income spectrum.
However, thanks to the rapid advancement of technology, smartphones have become available at almost any price point in just a few short years.
These days, everyone and their aunty has a smartphone with the ability to connect to the internet.
And this is giving prospective gamblers the ability to place bets online at any time and any place.
Increase in internet coverage
In the past 5 years, the expansion of the internet has surged in India.
The internet used to be something that was so expensive that it was almost exclusively available at workplaces and universities.
All that has changed, especially since the widespread availability of mobile data.
Nowadays, there are mobile data packages available at almost any price point, making internet connection more available than ever before.
And Indians are using the internet in a myriad of different ways.
Some people use the internet to study, and some use it for work, while others use the internet for entertainment purposes, such as betting online.
Now that the internet has become available to almost anyone, joining an online betting site is easier than ever before.
Making online betting transactions is easier than ever
Transferring money to and from betting sites (also known as making deposits and withdrawals) used to be a huge hassle for Indians, to a point where it was nearly impossible to make betting deposits.
But since the legal situation of online betting in India has recently become more transparent, banks and other payment service providers are now more than happy to process online betting transactions.
This means that the common man can now use anything right from his bank account to a PayTM wallet or his PhonePe balance to transfer money to an online betting site, thus making it easier and faster than ever to channel money to these betting sites.
According to online betting comparison site MyBetting.in, one of the biggest contributing factors to the popularity of online betting in India is the access to trusted and familiar payment methods on the betting sites.
The government wants it’s share
Due to the three predominant factors mentioned above: mobile expansion, internet connectivity and ease of making payments, online betting has become big business in India!
However, due to the fact that online betting remains an unregulated activity, the government of India, who usually doesn’t let a good business idea go untaxed, have been unable to tap into the enormous cash cow that is online betting.
If the government was to legalise and regulate online betting, then they would be able to tax either the online betting sites or the players themselves, which would result in a whole new stream of revenue for the government.
The total value of the Indian online betting market remains unknown at this point (according to MyBetting.in, the online cricket betting market alone is worth around $3 billion dollars), so it’s impossible to know exactly how much money is in it for the government.
In other words, there is no doubt that India is a billion dollar betting market, just waiting to be taxed.
And if there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the federal government of India will not sit idly by and let a good business opportunity go untaxed. The only question is when it will happen.
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