There has been a growth in interest in online casino games in India recently. This growth has been instigated by several factors including the youthful population of the country, the increased number of people who have access to the Internet, and growth in the number of smartphone users who can access games using downloadable apps.
Top international casino brands have taken advantage of the current casino game landscape in India and are now well-known names in the country. Recently, we spoke to Vishal Sharma, a sports journalist, and researcher at JustGamblers who produced this graph which outlines awareness of casino brands in India. He told us,
“I was interested to see just how aware Indian people are of global casino brands. The results were interesting and indicate that offshore casinos appear to be doing very well in the Indian market.”
What the research shows
The research conducted by Sharma and his team involved studying top online casino brands to determine which ones stood out in the Indian market. To do this, the team used search data to determine how many times people searched for each brand each month. These findings were used to calculate an average search figure.
The team calculated the top 10 performing brands. Interestingly, 70% of the searches were for the top 3 brands, Bet365, Dafabet, and Betway. Of these brands, Bet365 stood out as the most popular with a 29.9% share.
It’s clear that offshore brands dominate in the Indian online casino gaming arena. This is not surprising given the fact that potential India-based providers cannot legally provide online casino games to players right now so they are somewhat restricted in their operations.
What the future holds
There seems little doubt that the popularity of casino games in India will continue to increase. One of the biggest determining factors in this growth is the smartphone market which continues to flourish. According to Statista, the penetration rate of smartphones in India is set to reach 96% by 2040.
A further factor that will have a big influence on casino gaming overall, and the performance of major offshore brands, is legal developments in the country. The legal landscape regarding casinos has always been complex and the Public Gaming Act resulted in only a limited amount of activity being permitted in just two states.
In the future, the law could take the direction of becoming more lenient which would allow India-based operators to flourish. Alternatively, more restrictions could be put in place which would make it more difficult for any operators to provide gaming opportunities for casino fans in the country.
In the immediate future, a status quo seems to be most likely giving brands like Bet365 the opportunity to further grow their Indian customer base. However, only time will tell how the casino landscape will evolve in India in the coming years. It will be interesting to see the results of ongoing research by experts such as Vishal Sharma which are likely to reflect the effects of both technological advancements and legal decisions in the country.