The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing nationwide lockdown & social restrictions led to a remarkable rise in Indians spending their time engaging in online gaming on their mobile phones, desktops or laptops.

Fuelled by the rising number of people turning to online gaming for meeting their social & entertainment needs, telecom companies providing the internet connectivity are witnessing a surge in revenues, as data usage scales incredible new heights & revenue-sharing with gaming companies contributes big time.

According to KPMG, the Indian online gaming market has already reached revenues of Rs 5,250 crore. Moreover, a large number of analysts predict that the revenues will grow to $5 billion by 2024-25 – which is certainly a huge amount of growth for a period of only 4-5 years.

In July 2020, the total number of online gamers in India surpassed 40 crores. Withing six months – in January 2021, the number scaled 50 crores. This was an incredible growth of 20% in just 6 months.

Telcos are also making the most of these remarkable levels of growth in online gaming across the country, courtesy of sky-high revenue-sharing numbers.

Despite the amazing growth the industry is experiencing, there have been obstacles aplenty in the form of a large number of legal cases pertaining to the legality of online games. Being an unregulated sector is holding back the Indian online gaming industry from reaching its full potential.

Keeping that in mind, various stakeholders have urged the Indian Government to institute a regulatory body to standardize regulations for the online skill gaming sector in addition to the fantasy sports industry. For example, The All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) has said that like fantasy sports, India’s skill gaming industry too suffers from a byzantine set of state-by-state laws & regulations.

The industry feels that standardized rules & regulations for the skill gaming industry will eradicate the various illegal operators who make the most of the lack of a regulatory body.

States such as Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu have decided to ban online games such as Rummy & Poker, which resulted in discontent among the country’s gamers & being questioned by self-regulating bodies like the AIGF. With ever-growing revenue numbers, state governments are also having to evaluate their own actions. States such as Karnataka & Kerala are said to be looking to amend their existing regulatory systems.