Indian Premier League gaming hit by phoney clones

The booster dose, which will be injected this weekend with the start of the Indian Premier League (IPL), has a worthy accompaniment – the country’s great Indian online boom.

With India’s victory in the recent Champions Trophy pushing the adrenalin button to a new high, IPL viewing numbers are predicted to reach the sky.

The IPL 2024 saw a record-breaking 510 million viewers tune in for the first 51 matches on Star Sports, marking a 5% increase compared to the previous high in 2019 and an 18% increase in total watch time.

Gaming spectacle

This rush, however, is not confined to TV viewing or a stadium scramble – it has also moved onto a virtual world, the world of gaming, via a mobile phone. ‘Gaming’ generally refers to the activity of playing games, particularly video games, on devices like consoles, PCs, or smartphones, either individually or with others, and can encompass various genres and purposes.

In other words, this digital reality transports a viewer onto the pitch and millions of gamers not just keep an eye on scores, team lists and analysis, but indulge in fantasy sports. Naturally, cricket being no less than religion in India, consumes 90 per cent of this reverie.

Gaming companies create a spectacle for the fans that begins inside the stadium, even hours before a ball is bowled. Legal gaming platforms like Dream11, Games 24×7 and MPL, are a massive presence on the Indian sporting landscape.

A USD 100 billion market

The estimated numbers peg India’s gaming market at around ₹8.2 lakh crore ($100 billion) annually, according to Think Change Forum, an independent Indian think tank.

But money and fame are not without pitfalls. For these platforms, the last couple of years have been difficult. Why? The arrival of shadowy and phoney gaming platforms. These copycats, masquerading as the real McCoy and operating offshore from other countries, have not only been hitting the bottom lines of legal platforms but have also managed to confuse the ecosystem: fans can’t distinguish between real and fake.

Popping up at will, they exploit the regulatory gaps, threatening not just the existence of the legal platforms but also hacking away at the integrity of India’s most beloved sport.

Dodging the law

These platforms operate outside the ambit of law, dodging the regulated financial systems, exposing the system to money laundering. Without any data protection safeguards, users are exposed to data theft, financial fraud, and identity breaches. For fans, it is sometimes difficult to choose between platforms, as social media campaigns blur the lines between legitimate online gaming and illegal betting/gambling.

The potential loss in tax revenue to illegal operators exceeds ₹2 lakh crore ($24 billion) each year, the Think Change Forum report said.

Fantasy game platforms wary

There are good reasons why legal fantasy game platforms are worried. There has been a massive shift from watching cricket on TV to digital. In the recently played Champions Trophy in Dubai, new benchmarks were reached for JioHotstar with 540 crores plus views and a staggering 11,000 crore minutes of watch time. The IPL is bigger with stars like a constellation spread across 74 matches and 13 cities. From March 22 when it opens at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, to May 25, when it closes on the same historic ground, the nation is in shutdown mode.

According to a report by the Digital Foundation of India (DFI), four betting platforms, Parimatch, Stake, 1xBet, and Battery Bet received 1.6 billion visits in just three months, between October and December 2024. Driving visitors to these platforms are social media sites like Facebook, Meta, and Telegram, which together herded 42.8 million visits to these four platforms during that period.

DFI also states that Meta was hosting 1,040 ads related to gambling and betting on its various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

Sunrise industry

What’s more, gaming is a sunrise industry with cricket leagues mushrooming all over the globe. Many of them are controlled by Indian owners. In turn, the diehard cricket fan is bombarded with a barrage of cricket, showing no signs of abating or fan fatigue– neither now nor in the immediate foreseeable future.

Experts estimate that hundreds and millions of new gamers will come to the party and the legal platforms don’t want to lose out to companies working in the backdrop, out of sight, sitting in other countries and playing with the Indian system.

Exploiting the regulatory loopholes is not just the only pitfall. The menace of illegal gaming platforms drains money out of the economy, in addition to being a big threat to consumer protection and financial security.

To that end, with the signing of an MOU between the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and the gaming industry bodies like the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS), the All- India Gaming Federation (AIGF) and the E-Gaming Federation (EGF), some semblance of order is likely to be restored. Compliance will be strengthened in the real gaming industry by identifying illegal ads.

There is, however, a need for a dedicated regulatory body, established directly by the government or in collaboration with legitimate industry players. As the power and reach of the sport increases, the regulatory body could play a decisive and crucial role in identifying and blocking illegal operators, ensuring that payment gateways and ISPs do not service them.

Neil Castelino, CEO, Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports, told the media at the signing of the MOU between gaming federations and the ASCI: “We hope this collaboration will ensure that Indian consumers are not exposed to illegal platforms in the guise of online gaming, while promoting responsible advertising practices.”

The IPL is a whole new universe that gets burnished year after year. Clearly then, this system could do with a bout of tight regulations. It would be good for the cricket, its ecosystem and the game-crazy viewers.