What Was Fantasy Sports in India? A Complete Q&A on Its Rise and Regulatory Collapse

What was fantasy sports in India, exactly?

Fantasy sports platforms let users build virtual teams from real players ahead of an actual match — typically cricket — and earn points based on those players' real statistical performance: runs, wickets, catches, and so on. Most Indian platforms ran paid contests, where users paid an entry fee for a chance to win a share of a prize pool based on how their virtual team performed.

How big did the industry actually get?

Enormous, by any measure. Dream11, India's dominant platform, became the country's first fantasy sports unicorn, reaching an $8 billion valuation in 2021 with more than 250 million registered users and roughly 10 million daily active players at its peak. Government figures cited during the 2025 parliamentary debate estimated that real-money gaming companies had collectively drawn around $2.3 billion annually from roughly 450 million users across India.

Why was it legal in the first place?

Fantasy sports platforms operated for years under a "game of skill" legal distinction, which exempted them from India's strict gambling laws that target games of pure chance. Courts had previously accepted the argument that assembling a competitive fantasy team required genuine sports knowledge and strategic decision-making, distinguishing it from betting on an outcome.

That distinction was never fully settled nationally, though. Coverage was patchy: platforms like Dream11 operated legally in most of the country while being effectively banned in states like Assam, where gambling law made no distinction between skill and chance, and Odisha, where a broad definition of gambling under the state's 1955 Prevention of Gambling Act covered any activity risking money on an outcome.

How closely was fantasy sports tied to cricket specifically?

Very closely — cricket was the backbone of the entire industry, especially around the IPL. Dream11 was named India's national cricket team's lead jersey sponsor in July 2023, a three-year deal that put its logo on Team India kits during international matches. Endorsements from top Indian cricketers were also a major driver of platform growth throughout the 2020s.

What changed in 2025?

India's parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, banning all "real-money games" — a category the law defined to include fantasy sports, rummy, and poker, regardless of whether they involved skill or chance. The bill cleared the lower house and then the upper house of parliament in quick succession in August 2025, criminalising the offering, promotion, and financing of such games, with penalties of up to five years in prison for operators. Esports was explicitly exempted, as the law aimed to encourage grassroots and skill-based competitive gaming that didn't involve cash prizes.

Why did the government ban it?

Lawmakers pointed to the scale of money being drawn out of households nationwide, citing the roughly $2.3 billion in annual revenue extracted from hundreds of millions of users as evidence of a system causing broad financial harm, particularly among lower-income and younger users. The law grouped fantasy sports together with poker and rummy under a single "real-money gaming" umbrella rather than trying to regulate each separately by degree of skill involved.

What happened to Dream11 and other platforms?

The impact was immediate and severe. According to Dream11 co-founder and CEO Harsh Jain, roughly 95% of the company's revenue disappeared once the law took effect. Dream Sports, the parent company, restructured into eight separate business units by December 2025 — including Dream11 itself, sports-streaming platform FanCode, and a new AI-focused analytics arm — and more than 100 employees exited the company during the reorganisation. Rival platform MPL began winding down its India operations soon after the bill passed both houses. Shares of gaming-linked companies like Nazara Technologies also dropped sharply, falling nearly 10% the day after the bill cleared the lower house.

What did this mean for cricket's biggest sponsorship deals?

It put Dream11's high-profile India jersey sponsorship in immediate doubt. Asked about the situation as the bill neared passage, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia was direct about the board's position.

"If it's not permissible, we'll not do anything." — Devajit Saikia, BCCI Secretary, August 2025

The comment reflected the broader uncertainty gripping Indian cricket's commercial ecosystem in the days around the bill's passage, given how deeply fantasy sports sponsorship money had become embedded in team and league revenue.

Is any form of fantasy sports still legal in India today?

Yes, but only free-to-play versions with no entry fees and no cash prizes. Dream11 rebuilt its platform around advertising, sponsorships, and brand partnerships rather than paid entry fees, and users who had money sitting in platform wallets when the law passed were advised to withdraw those balances, since real-money transactions on these platforms are no longer processed by Indian banks and payment gateways.

What happened to the companies afterward?

Facing the loss of their core Indian market, several major platforms pivoted internationally. Dream11 expanded into new markets outside India, adapting free-to-play versions of its product to local sports preferences in each region, positioning its post-ban strategy around global growth rather than a fight to restore the domestic paid-contest model.