India is a country that is passionate about sports, and this is evident in the large number of people who engage in sports betting. The recent growth of online gambling has made it easy for Indians to bet on their favorite teams, and this is contributing to the growing popularity of sports betting in India. In this article, we will take a look at some of the reasons why sports betting is growing in India.
Internet Infrastructure is Ready
One of the primary reasons why online sports betting is so popular anywhere in the world is because it takes place online. Being online offers many benefits, such as being able to bid from the comfort of your own home, not having to travel anywhere to make bets, as well as not needing to get dressed into anything fancy.
This is exactly why sports betting is growing incredibly popular in India as well. There are now popular online casino and betting websites such as bettinginindia.online that provide independent casino reviews, the best online casino games, and top casino bonuses. More than this, the infrastructure for the Internet in the country is ready for sports betting or many online activities. As of 2021, the average download speed in India was 60 megabits per second, with an upload speed of around 56 megabits per second. In addition to this, the cost of Internet in India is not too expensive as well, with packages ranging from $13 to $45, at 4 Mbps to 100 Mbps, respectively.
If you were to give a person a choice between going to a physical venue to bet on sports or being able to bet from the comfort of your own home, most people would choose the latter, as is evident by the rise in popularity of online sports betting around the globe.
Mobile Phone Usage
The next reason why sports betting has seen such a growth in popularity in India is very similar to the first; mobile usage is increasing with each passing year. This isn’t a complete surprise since the statistics match the overall growth globally. Depending on where you look for statistics, you’ll find that some sites say that more than 3 billion people use smartphones around the world, whereas other sites might claim that almost everyone, 7.26 billion, uses a smartphone.
When it comes to smartphone usage in India, India is one of the countries that have the highest online presence in terms of mobile users. Current statistics say that an estimated 744 million people go online with their smartphones in India. Similar research states that the majority of the population that uses smartphones in India spends around 1/3 of their day doing just that. If you were to combine the fact that Internet infrastructure in India is ready for online sports betting and the fact that mobile phone usage in the country is at an all-time high, it makes sense that those who are fans of sports and like gambling would take to sports betting using their mobile devices.
Sports are Already Popular
Now that we have established that the infrastructure in India in terms of the Internet is ready for online betting and the majority of the population is already using smartphones, and within that majority, many people are using smartphones to place bets, we need to take a look at what makes it all possible; the love of the sport.
In terms of sports in India, there are two major sports in India that are the most popular, which heavily contribute to sports betting in the country. Those two sports are football and cricket. Cricket is by far the most popular sport in India, so much so that it has overshadowed all other sports, making the infrastructure for those other sports almost nonexistent. Football is a close competitor to cricket and is slowly becoming more and more popular. The big question is, “will sports betting outside of cricket and football exist?”; this remains to be seen.
Not Exactly Illegal
Finally, the last contributing factor to the growth of sports betting in India is the fact that sports betting is not exactly illegal. While they are lists of gambling activities that are legal within the country, sports betting, on the other hand, falls into what we call a gray area.
This is because there is not much regulation in terms of sports betting within the country, meaning that it is not illegal or illegal. At the moment, many sports bettors need to take to sites that are based outside of India to place bets, but that isn’t to say that the market for sports betting within India is nonexistent. Quite the contrary, if sports betting was completely legal within India and was supported by the government in some way, it might become the biggest market in the world.
