Hyderabad|India|January'2010: Indian culture
adopted gambling from the beginning of Indian civilization, which started
4000 years ago. Great Indian epic Mahabharata dating to 1500 B.C. has the
main story, which starts with a dice match. Different members of a royal
family competed for the throne; finally it came down to a dice game in
which one of the competitors lost all his royal possessions including his
wife. The story however has a happy ending.
There were many gambling
houses for gamblers to assemble and play like there was no tomorrow. Those
houses were supervised by an official to assure orderly gambling and
collect from the players a percentage for the King.
Fast forward to later half of the century and
India saw exponential growth in card rooms (Bridge
and Rummy) all across India, it is estimated there
are 10,000+ of such card rooms.
Recently in 2007 one of the international operators sponsored India's
first ever Professional Poker tournament in Goa.
Asian Poker Classic, which attracted players from all over the world,
had some 80 Indian players in the tournament. Poker has been gaining
traction as more and more urban young Indians take up this Card Game. A
recent article published in English Daily form India predicted more than
2000 small poker tournaments a week mainly in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and
Hyderabad.
Indians love to bet on sports, which is true from the fact as some
predict illegal sports betting market to be $ 40 billion in India. Most of
it being on cricket but in recent times bookies have seen volume picking
up in soccer, tennis and Formula1.
Internet is now integral part of life in Urban India, with 81
Million[1] users of which nearly 75% are from just 4 cities (Delhi,
Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore). Men within age group 18-35 still
constitute 76% of all users. It is estimated that 52% of all users are
active ecommerce users who spent an average of $ 2100 for online
transactions in 2009[2]. See the chart below and predictions for 2010 and
2011.
Taking an assumption of target demographics of an online gambling user:
-
- Age 18-35-(76% of all Users)
- Male (86% of all users)
- Active Ecommerce User (Spending $2500 a year)
- Bachelor Degree (90% of all users)
- So that gets us to 4+ Million potential users and, it is assumed
that they will deposit $250 a year (Worldwide Beer Index[3]), that's
potentially a market size $ 1 billion or Rs 4600 Crores at current
exchange rate.
The above being direct B2C players. Apart from that India's illegal
betting market, which currently wagers on International sports books and
Other Casino sites is more than likely to wager (at least 10% i.e. $4
Billion) with local operators as and when Online Gambling is regulated.
All this tallies up to $ 5 Billion market size for online gambling in
India.
Lately there has been a lot if buzz on the Internet as some top
international operators are trying to secure India's first ever online
gambling license. Reports have been published the same could be granted
very shortly and some assuming as early as within next 1-2 months.
India has come far from Mahabharata times plus been on forefront of new
technology and potential regulation of Online Gambling could be one such
proof when it happens.
[1] As of November 2008, Per ITU, Source www.internetworldstats.com
[2] Source: www.startupduniya.com
[3] Generally a Beer Drinker deposits 6 times the cost of average Pint
in a month in developed Markets. Assuming Beer pint to be Rs. 150, that's
amounts to Rs 900 a month or Rs. 11,000 (Approx $ 240) a year.
Reachout's News Bureau
January'
2010
