India’s Fast-Developing Online Casino Sector

For centuries, gambling has been a popular pastime in the Indian sub-continent. Today, it’s more popular than ever with some estimating that it may be worth as much as $900 million a year. This makes it amongst the most valuable markets in the world for operators, increasingly of whom are concentrating their operations online.

Several factors have combined to hit the sweet spot making India such a prime location, and why the sector is destined to continue on its upward trajectory over the coming years.

The first of these is the sheer size of the population. It’s the second-most populous country in the world after China, coming in at around 1.38 billion people, way ahead of the next largest country, the USA, with only 331 million. What’s more, the median age in India is just 28. So it all boils down to a youthful, and large, population who are at an age when they want to explore new things and enjoy novel experiences.

So it’s no major surprise that one of the experiences many want to savor is the online casino. In the three decades during which these have been in existence, they have progressed out of all recognition. Constantly striving to replicate the actual casino experience as closely as possible, one of the more recent innovations has been the “live” casino. Sites like Genesis live casino offer real-time games such as roulette or blackjack, along with a variety of other titles. With games led by real dealers, it makes for a genuinely immersive experience.

While the online casino has proved to be popular in many countries around the world from the UK to Australia, there is another reason why it is such a hit in India. This is because anyone wanting to go a “bricks and mortar” casino will only find them in three states – Goa, Daman, and Sikkim. In a huge country, this is simply too far for many to travel so they choose to get their gambling excitement online.

A final factor is that only 35% of the Indian population live in urban areas. So increasingly of their lives are having to be lived online. For many years, the country lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of access to online services. But now, thanks to the efforts of the government, backed by major service providers, internet connectivity doubled in the 4-year period between 2016 and 2020 and continue to increase. Alongside this, cell phone ownership is also increasing sharply with up to 350 million new users projected by 2023. The growing market and accessibility of smartphones have allowed greater access to various entertainment industries, such as online casinos. Naturally, many industries have subsequently flourished as more of the population can access new services previously unavailable.

So with even more people being given even better access to online casinos in the next few years, it promises to be a boom-time for operators. This, inevitably, will create a win-win situation with more games and better choice for the ever-growing population of online players in India.