In a market sector that is constantly evolving, which is leading to reduced costs and newer tech being announced seemingly in an endless stream, the online space is becoming more widely available to people around the world than ever before. One of the markets adopting these changes in tech faster than anyone else in the world is India. This had been seen recently in the rapid rise of the social media platform TikTok before the ban – with a population size of over 1.3 billion, the platform was able to capture almost 120 million active users, a number that’s hard for any to look past.
But social media hasn’t been the only space for growth. The Indian online betting industry has also experienced a huge growth in recent years, despite online gambling being technically illegal in the country. A number of sites that allow betting on sports in India already exist and, given the huge national interest in cricket and other sports, it’s no surprise that things could quickly be changing. India's relatively untapped audience is driving more and more attention and we're seeing regulatory changes in many parts of the world. The UK has recently decided to updated its gambling legislation, banning things such as credit card deposits. But with little online regulation or much in the way of ruleset for these operators within India, there is plenty of space to move around and feel things out. Alongside this, because there is little in the way of gambling infrastructure within the country, there's an opportunity for regulation to be developed along the way. Not only to best support the growing number of new players that will be involved but in order to also ensure the operators of these sites have some wiggle room too.
That isn’t to say there aren’t any challenges however – initial reports suggest that only 23 million people within India have the financial capabilities to bet online. But as with all countries that are quickly developing, this number is expected to rise very quickly as the middle-class population is expanding. Sure, the challenge of accessibility remains real for many potential players. It has been suggested that a little under half of the entire population are currently active on the internet. However, figures are suggesting that number is rising by up to 60 million each year, as shown by the the success of platforms such as TikTok. By the time operators have been able to build and establish themselves in the region the numbers may have already risen to a very healthy number to get things started extremely quickly.
There’s also cultural changes to consider. It's already happening across many parts of the world, such as many African countries where western ideologies are starting to take root, and the same might reveal to be true for India. If online betting is still a foreign concept, having new users to understand how to best approach it and to change attitude towards gambling is important in online betting really taking off. Despite the huge population, India is still an emerging market after all and still a market adjusting to the modern technological changes. Gambling is very much on its way towards legalisation with the sweeping acceptance however, and it may not be long until India is seen as one of the bigger primary gambling markets in the world with a core built around the sports betting industry.
Bobby Bawa
