Increase in the popularity of Fantasy Cricket Game in India

Jan.11 (CRICKETNMORE) - Cricket isn’t a sport in India, it is practically a religion. Virtually every Indian has played the game at least once and India accounts for an overwhelming majority of all cricket fans in the world and now they are starting to take their love for this game online with fantasy cricket. While fantasy sports aren’t as popular in India as in countries like the US, they are growing at an exciting rate with gambling websites playing a huge role in it. So let’s have look at the rise and current state of fantasy cricket in India.

What is fantasy cricket?

Before we get into the how and why fantasy cricket is taking over cricket fans in India, let’s answer a far more basic question, what is fantasy cricket?

To put it layman's terms, fantasy cricket is an online game that allows its players to experience what it would be like to be the captain or the coach of their very own cricket team which competes it various tournaments.

From managing individual players to deciding the team’s strategy, it’s all up to the player how well his team performs against their friends or anyone else they want to test their skills against! The cash prizes people get on winning are just the cherry on the top of a very delicious and fulfilling cake for them.

What got the ball rolling for fantasy cricket in India?

While studying and analyzing exactly how fantasy cricket started to get an initial following in India would be a worthy task, it is far more obvious and interesting to talk about what actually skyrocketed the popularity of this fantasy game and put in on its way towards becoming the biggest online game in India.

Indian Premier League or IPL can be single-handedly credited with taking fantasy cricket from being a niche pleasure of die-hard tech savvy cricket fans and putting it right in the spotlight for everyone to enjoy.

There were multiple reasons why IPL was the reason for the early rise of fantasy cricket in India like how insanely popular the league is among cricket fans, even outside of India—so much so that it is among the top 10 most profitable sports leagues in the world—but it is the format of IPL that lends into so perfectly with what fantasy sports are all about.

Just like with football leagues like the English Premier League, IPL allows players from all over the cricket world to compete against each other in combinations and ways that would be impossible in international cricket. The joy of watching one’s two favourite players captain opposing teams and play against each other is something to behold and people started to play fantasy cricket in search of more of this rush and rarely ever find themselves disappointed with it.

The Current State of Fantasy Cricket in India

2017 and 2018 saw the rise in popularity of fantasy cricket at an insane rate which has resulted in the number of fantasy cricket sites almost doubling in number. This is a clear indication of just how popular this online game has become in India.

Some estimates have stated that the number of fantasy cricket players has grown from two hundred thousand to north of 40 million in just the last two years! That is the kind of growth other online games would die for.

While Dream11 is the dominating force in the world of fantasy cricket, other online fantasy cricket sites have also gained a respectable number of users which is sure to increase as time goes on.

Furthermore, it has been observed that during the IPL season, the number of fantasy cricket players experiences a major boost which just goes to show how influential this league is for fantasy cricket.

The Future of Fantasy Cricket in India

While the growth of over 2000% in just two years in the number of fantasy cricket players would be enough to satisfy the mangers of fantasy cricket websites, the still untapped market is too huge to not be considered.

India has over 12 billion people living in it and a majority of them have a love for cricket and as technology and internet reach more and more of these people, the fantasy cricket scene could grow to become something that other fantasy sports cannot even contemplate being. In fact, the number of fantasy cricket players might surpass the number of fantasy of fantasy football players all over the world by the end of this year itself.

Like every time there is another season of IPL, fantasy cricket player counts grow outrageously and since IPL is showing no signs of slowing down or losing its popularity, the popularity of fantasy cricket is virtually guaranteed to get a major boost every single year.

This truly is an exciting time to a fan of fantasy cricket.