Fantasy sports in India
Fantasy sports came to India in the later half of the 2010s. The Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) is the highest governing body.
India has many fantasy mobile gaming applications. The Google Play Store does not allow these apps on their platform for download, thus people who want to play them must download them from their websites. To attract people, these apps sponsor sports leagues, advertise through cricket players, get endorsements from film actors, and run ads with various betting websites.
Various apps advertise users can earn lakhs and crores of rupees on their app. The Government of India does not regulate these apps. The Play Store considers these apps to be gambling apps, which violate Google's anti-gambling policy, leading to both Mobile Premier League and Dream 11 being banned from the Play Store. In September 2022, Google Play allowed some gambling and casino apps to be downloaded. In October 2021, Karnataka banned fantasy gaming apps, but in February 2022, the Karnataka High Court lifted it. In October 2022, Tamil Nadu also banned them. According to the judge that made the ruling, "These apps have ruined [sic] many families, by indulging people into gambling."Telangana, Assam, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Nagaland have a complete ban on these type of online games. As per FIFS, their member companies do not allow people below 18 to play on their platforms. These apps use KYC (Know Your Customer) guidelines as per FIFS. But, The Times of India found this to be false; many apps only ask KYC when user withdraw money and age verification is done by user which can be false.
According to a 2022 report of NITI Aayog, fantasy sports is estimated to attract 10,000 crore rupees foreign direct investment in India in the next few years. As per Deloitte's report in same year, the Indian fantasy sport industry is worth 34,000 crore and it has 13 crore users. In addition to cricket, these apps allow the creation of teams in other sports which are not as popular as cricket, such as field hockey, association football, and kabaddi. Since performance in fantasy sports requires one to be relatively well-versed in the nuances of the sport in question, the addition of hockey, kabaddi, football, and other sports in OFSPs increases the interest and consumption of these sports.