In the past, sports fans were voluntarily glued to their television sets for hours, watching their favorite sports as passive spectators.
However, in the last decade, the way we consume sports has changed dramatically. New innovations such as online betting in India and fantasy sports have changed everything and made sports way more interactive than before.
Thanks to fantasy sports, the monotony of sitting in front of a television screen has been broken and fans can now actively engage in the game.
What are Fantasy Sports?
Fantasy Sports is a virtual game played on the internet that enables you to assemble a fantasy team of real players. You can play fantasy cricket, as well as fantasy football, as well as other popular sports.
The player can make up his team based on his favorite players, and the players he believes will do well in actual real-world matches. You will then earn points based on the actual performance of those players in real life.
So if you have Virat Kohli on your team and he scores a hundred, your fantasy cricket team will earn points. Or if you are playing fantasy football with Cristiano Ronaldo and he scores 3 goals, your fantasy football team will earn points!
On many fantasy sports sites, you can then convert the points you have earned into physical prizes or cash rewards.
As such, fantasy sports function like a form of online betting, but in a more subtle way. You are not actually betting on Virat Kohli to score a hundred like you would on a betting site, but you still get financially rewarded if you have him on your team and he scores a hundred.
The fact that online betting in India is a legally contested topic, many Indians are afraid of betting online. Fantasy sports, however, is seen as an acceptable and legal alternative to gambling. And for this reason, an ever-increasing number of Indians are taking up fantasy sports as a hobby.
According to recent research, the Asia-Pacific Fantasy Sports Market (of which India is a sizable part) is expected to grow at an annual rate of 18.32% over the forecast period from 2021 to 2026.
One of the driving factors behind this incredible growth is that fantasy sports are considered legal in India…
Why Fantasy Sports are Legal in India
In India, the issue of online gambling laws are left up to the individual states to handle. This means that there are many different regulations, and players should check the laws in their state before they can engage in online gambling of any sort.
However, most states agree on one thing: games of skill should be legal, but games of luck should be prohibited.
According to the Supreme Court of India, fantasy sport is considered a game of skill.
A game of skill is a type of game in which the outcome is based on skill, not chance, and the player’s chance of winning is directly proportional to his knowledge, training, attention, and experience.
This means that fantasy games do not fall under the regulations prohibiting gambling in most Indian states, which is the main reason as to why fantasy sports has seen such tremendous growth in the past decade, and will continue to grow even bigger over the next ten years!