Fantasy Sports: A Decoy For Gambling- No Sports In Fantasy Sports, Just Pure Luck!

Fantasy sports industry rapidly growing

In India, gambling is prohibited in every form, but there are currently no specific regulations for fantasy gaming, which is increasingly becoming a concern. In accordance with Deloitte, the Indian online gaming market is anticipated to almost triple from $1.1 billion in 2019 to $2.8 billion in 2022 as a result of the widespread use of smartphones, inexpensive internet, and simple electronic payment systems.

The Tiger Global-backed Dream11 evolved into the first fantasy gaming unicorn in the country in 2019, while the Sequoia Capital-backed Mobile Premier League (MPL) ended up being the second one in the industry to reach a billion-dollar value in 2021. My11Circle, MyTeam11, Fan2Play, and 11 Wickets are just a few of the minor fantasy gaming sites that have been becoming increasingly prevalent in India in recent years.

Physicians from Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as well as Bengaluru’s Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) claim that the emergence of these fantasy gaming applications has caused an increase in gaming and gambling addiction over the previous several years.

Online gaming addiction instances have been trickling into the SHUT clinic in recent years, according to the facility’s director, Dr. Manoj Sharma. Every month, Sharma meets at least a few new patients who exhibit signs of fantasy game addiction. However, he said that the actual amount of victims may be significantly greater. It’s challenging to gauge the true effect of online fantasy sports on the general public since technologically driven addictions are still not taken seriously in the nation, according to Sharma.

Regardless of the increasing prevalence of fantasy gaming, Saksham Singh, a researcher at Ashoka University’s Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, informed that there hasn’t been any conclusive evidence on addictions among players in India. This is true in spite of the fact that an addiction to gaming has been linked to instances of increasing debt and financial loss, according to international research, Singh continued.

According to Dr. Rachana Bharghava, a professor of clinical psychology at AIIMS, many Indians overlook expenditure on fantasy sports to be a cause for concern until they experience suicidal thoughts due to losses or sadness, which prevents these individuals from getting medical attention.

She acknowledged that there had been a few instances of online gambling addiction there, but these individuals left after a few sessions of treatment. Although it is quite handy to try their luck on such platforms, she went on to say that overcoming an addiction requires a lot of dedication.

Despite the large user bases of businesses including Dream11 and MPL, not much is known about the specifics of these individuals and the potential effects that fantasy gambling could end up having on them. According to Anirudh Tagat, a researcher of the Department of Economics in Monk Prayogshala in Mumbai, it is hard to determine who is utilizing such websites because there are no legal frameworks that exist to hold such platforms responsible for gathering user data.

The entrance barrier is so minimal for fantasy game applications if all that is needed to join up is a smartphone. As a result, nobody knows who may be using these apps and perhaps developing an addiction to them.

In the three years or so since he began uploading videos, Sourabh Mondal, a 33-year-old CS graduate who operates his own YouTube channel that provides fantasy betting recommendations and possesses greater than twenty-six thousand subscribers. He expressed that plenty of individuals have opened their hearts to him about their gambling addiction and monetary losses.

He remembers a specific interaction he had with a Rajasthani user this past year whose sixteen-year-old child had attempted suicide after losing INR 15,000 on an application like this. What was intriguing was that this parent, 42, had been playing similar fantasy games as well. Mondal said that he was actually making some money out of it. This is a classic example of how fantasy sports is making a grip on both generations.

Mondal claimed that several of his friends have lost hundreds of thousands of rupees engaging in these types of games and said they continue playing in an effort to recoup those losses. As a result, it is clear that this process is an infinite cycle, identical to actual gambling.

Another individual who lost a lot of cash playing these fantasy sports said that there is no talent involved; luck alone determines the outcome. He continued by saying that in cricket, sportsmen seek guidance from their coaches, follow them, and hone their skills. No amount of coaching or playing can improve your game in this situation.

Origin of Fantasy Sports

Bill Gamson, a Harvard psychology lecturer who founded “The Baseball Seminar” in the beginning of the 1960s, engaged his fellow college academics in a competition. Everyone who participated paid a $10 entrance fee to assemble a baseball fantasy club. The player with the greatest number of points throughout the course of the whole Major League Baseball season, as measured by a preset set of statistical criteria, was declared the champion.

As a result, the Rotisserie League was developed, which turned out to be an early model for contemporary fantasy leagues. Prior to the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, engagement in such leagues was largely concealed. With the advent of the web, fantasy sports went from being a niche pastime to a worldwide sensation with growing economic potential. Fantasy sports became widely popular after being introduced to the public by ESPN, the first significant media firm.

Popularity in India 

Most Indians now have easier means of obtaining access to the Internet because to the wide availability of affordable cell phones and cheap data contracts. As a result, fantasy sports apps have become increasingly popular as individuals become more interested in the possibility of making money by utilizing their sports expertise and forecasting skills. But in this case, the game is more about prediction than it is about knowledge, which ultimately pushes a very large percentage of players into a position of losses or zero profit, no loss.

Many players continue to play even when their win percentage (out of all bets placed) is much smaller in the expectation of winning or making up for their losses, which appears to be nothing more than an addiction.

India’s passion for cricket has fostered the growth of fantasy sports websites, which have been well received by fans. Throughout the period of lockdown, one such portal, Dream 11, garnered popularity and offered a better viewing experience. Many individuals were seeking for ways to amuse themselves and make money while the COVID-19 outbreak forced them to stay at home. Both were available in fantasy games, enabling players to take part in their preferred sports and earn income at the same time.

The growing popularity of these applications has also been greatly influenced by advertising and promotional efforts, with fantasy game businesses extensively spending in these techniques to draw players, which include celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing. To gain market share, they fund teams and activities.

Legal Status of Fantasy Sports in India

Karnataka approved regulations that outlawed all online gambling applications in October of last year. The state court, however, overturned the judgment a month ago on the grounds that fantasy gaming was based on skills therefore didn’t constitute gambling. The legitimacy of online sports has already been confirmed by the Supreme Court of India. However, such online games are totally prohibited in additional regions, including Telangana, Assam, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Nagaland.

Singh of Ashoka University says that while regulating this emerging business, consumer protection must be prioritized. Traditionally, when purchasing a service product, the vendor must be held accountable, he explained. However, we are unsure of the extent of the accountability in this case. Accountability might only be enforced through explicit regulatory bodies, for instance an Indian Gaming Commission, that also take addictions into consideration.

The legal status of betting and gambling within India is controlled by entries 34 as well as 62 in the State List found in the 17th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which enable each state to legislate its own laws and regulations for such activities, as well as the accompanying taxes.

While several versions of fantasy sports are presently or have previously been prohibited, the Supreme Court of India affirmed an online fantasy sports version to be a ‘game of skill’ pursuant to its 2021 judgment.

Gambling is defined differently in jurisdictions, but it often combines three key components: an advance wager or bet (also referred to as “consideration”), a situation having an unpredictable conclusion (“chance”), along with the prospect of receiving a reward. For something to be deemed gambling, all of these factors have to be involved.

However, every one of the aforementioned requirements can be interpreted differently. In India, the amount of “skill” vs “chance” associated with a practice is the deciding element in establishing whether or not it is gambling. This requirement, however, has to be reconsidered, especially in context with the advent of online platforms.

Why are fantasy sports systems unregulated?

Whenever an individual earns in excess of INR 10,000 on these kinds of platforms, a charge between thirty and thirty-five percent of the winnings is withheld at its source and given to the government. This might also explain why it is tolerated by the government, and indirectly encouraged. 

According to a KPMG estimate, the total number of internet-based gamers in India is likely to increase from 43.3 crore in 2021 to 65.7 crore by 2025. In the past year, the internet-based gaming business generated INR 13,600 crore in income, with casual gamers contributing INR 6,020 crore.

According to the survey, the income of the Indian online gaming sector is predicted to reach INR 29,000 crore by 2025, along with casual gamers generating INR 16,900 crore. The recently released report, “Global Fantasy Sports Market Size, Statistics, Trend Analysis, and Forecast Report, 2022 – 2032” predicts the sector to be worth $21.46 billion in 2021 and predicts it to be worth $92.61 billion by 2032.

Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, as well as cricket have been named as the top fantasy sports, with India providing a substantial boost to the cricket section. According to J. Clement in a study paper released on Statista.com in August 2022, the worldwide online media industry has been constantly rising, with gaming making up the largest portion of market sales.

No sports in Fantasy Sports

It is contemporary times gambling on cell phones in broad daylight. A robust framework to control the gambling sector is desperately needed, Sunieta Ojha, advocate-on-record at the Supreme Court of India, has weighed in.

‘Fantasy sports’ contains no sports. It is absurd to claim that fantasy sports participants are truly sportsmen or organizers in sporting events. In reality, fantasy sports games are attempting to capitalize on the increasing significance of sporting events by immersing players in a universe of controlled realism and allowing simple access to gambling or betting upon their preferred teams.

As a result, the firms that manage such fantasy sports platforms are supporting online gambling in sports, which poses the greatest danger to the integrity of sporting events in the present and future. The ‘talent’, so to say, resides within developers of applications, proprietors of such platforms, who generate revenue under the name of ‘platform fee’.

The Way Forward

Simply defined, ‘fantasy game platforms’ are nothing more than sports gambling (that is banned in the actual realm) in a virtual setting. The medium has evolved, however the goal and aim stay essentially the same: to capitalize on people by promising quick money by betting on the result of an unforeseen occurrence.

In realistic terms, technology has increased accessibility to sports betting through the use of cell phones, internet access, cheap data, and payment systems. Playing may be started and ended with the press of a button. As a result, the online fantasy sports market has grown to be worth $1 billion. Governmental silence on this issue is a result of their revenue from these platforms, along with prominent youtubers and well-known actors gaining loads of money openly endorsing gambling commercials.

Over time, the “skill versus chance” test’s applicability will need to advance significantly to handle the unique problems that virtual reality’s setting presents. Simply because a work requires some ability does not automatically make it lawful.

Should the ‘skill’ element used in the game by the gamer, then, be permitted to include the ‘fantasy game’ in the preview of trade or businesses to be safeguarded under Article-19 (1) (g) when obviously such games are engaged in on an app created by a gaming company and there is no system at present within India for verifying the applications for criteria which a civilized society would like to be in place.

To sum up, it would be preferable to shift towards ‘impact’ and ‘effect’ evaluations to be established by law or interpreting statutes in assessing the legality of ‘fantasy sports’. Additionally, Article 19 (1) (g) gives the state the authority to pass legislation to control commerce or business. The state should therefore, take action to establish a thorough framework to control the rapidly growing gaming business and establish grievance redressal processes in order to foresee and avert an oncoming catastrophe.