The Indian iGaming market almost always comes back to the same familiar references: cricket betting, Teen Patti tables, and the fantasy sports boom. Blask, a gambling intelligence platform, has shared data exclusive with SiGMA News that fills in the gaps in that story rather than challenging it. The results provide the most thorough demand-side understanding of how India’s online gaming segments are actually changing by monitoring category-level search interest across gambling verticals from April 2025 to March 2026.
Lotteries take the lead
Lotteries dominate with about 35 per cent of total interest, followed by live dealers with 29 per cent. Poker remains stable at 6 per cent, while online casinos, online betting, and fantasy sports each make up about 10 per cent of the total. Bingo, racing, and prediction markets hardly leave an impression. It is hardly surprising that lotteries are at the top. It has remained well ahead of the competition thanks to six decades of state-run infrastructure and a cultural familiarity that most gambling formats just cannot match.
The lottery landscape in India is shaped by the Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998, which effectively bans private players by limiting draw-based lotteries to state-run or state-licensed businesses. The state of Kerala established the benchmark in 1967 with weekly drawings, affordable ticket prices, and profits allocated to development and welfare programmes. Since then, this model has been largely embraced by the rest of the country.
The Bodoland Territorial Council, Kerala, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Goa, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur are the thirteen states that now hold official lotteries. Since then, 13 states have adopted this concept and are now holding their own draws. Millions of people are reached daily by mass-market brands like Lottery Sambad, Dear Lottery, and Nagaland State Lottery.
At the same time, Kerala alone spends an estimated $1.6 million on tickets annually, according to data. Crucially, players tend to search generically for results and draw times rather than specific operators, because the brand is usually the state itself. That behaviour pushes the lottery’s share higher still.
Teen Patti dominates live dealer
India’s live dealer segment is uniquely distorted. About 78 per cent of all live-dealer search interest is devoted to Teen Patti, leaving little space for anything else. Blackjack and roulette together only take 13 per cent. The format that revolutionised live-dealer economics throughout Europe, game shows, now account for 3 per cent. The other domestic title, Andar Bahar, holds 2 per cent.
Indian players’ actions are not covered by the standard international live-dealer playbook. This “live dealer” section is actually a Teen Patti vertical with a small supporting cast that consists of blackjack, roulette, Baccarat, and a thin layer of game-show-style forms hugging the margins. Around festivals like Diwali, when card games already play a significant role in Indian homes, teen Patti-centric live-dealer traffic climbs dramatically, demonstrating how cultural rhythm, rather than just global design, affects this vertical.
Slots rule casino category
In the online casino universe, slots account for about 62 per cent of interest. The figure worth pausing on, however, is the combined 13 per cent held by Plinko and Crash the signature mechanics of the crypto-casino wave that built platforms like Stake, Rollbit, and BC.Game.
These formats produce little direct search traffic in those markets since they are infrequently found on licensed, regulated European operators. In contrast, the offshore crypto-casino tier in India has generated so much revenue that users’ behaviour has become embedded with the format nomenclature. Instead of treating “Plinko game” and “Crash betting” as specialised features under a general casino umbrella, Indian players increasingly search for these terms by name.
Cricket leads betting
Queries like “betting app,” “online betting site,” and “betting platform India” account for about 90 per cent of all betting search activity. Football and all other sports are insignificant, and cricket as a named category makes up only 7 per cent. It is a verbal explanation rather than a behavioural one. Since cricket is so widely accepted as the default that naming it becomes unnecessary, Indian bettors look for the act of betting rather than sport-specific words.
According to current figures, cricket-related fantasy sports alone generate over 85 per cent of fantasy sports revenue in India, which further supports the notion that cricket is the foundation of the “general” betting search bucket. Even if they do not say it out loud, this linguistic shortcut is a subtle indicator of how much cricket has influenced Indians’ perceptions about betting.
Influencers shape bets
Social media-driven communities are progressively influencing a large portion of India’s betting-related internet activity. Data indicates that over 90 per cent of “general” betting search interest goes beyond conventional sports queries. Although cricket continues to be a significant role, industry observers attribute these search patterns in large part to the increasing power of so-called “prediction gurus.”
Platforms like Telegram and YouTube have quietly become the social centre of India’s betting culture, with dozens of channels devoted to match predictions, fantasy team selections, and game-specific tips like Teen Patti strategies. Analysts see this as evidence of iGaming’s social turn. Players now engage in more than just placing individual wagers. They are collaborating to make decisions, sharing ideas, and taking part in lively online communities.
PROGA Act: New era of rules
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules (PROGA), effective on 1 May 2026, would significantly change the Indian online gaming market. The framework clearly distinguishes between what is and is not permitted by prohibiting any “online money games” that rely on chance and creating a safe environment for e-sports and so-called social games. The goal of this modification is to promote clarity and tighten oversight in a previously fragmented regulatory framework.
Penalties are severe: fines of up to ₹1 crore (approx. $120,000) for first offences, ₹2 crore (approx. $240,000) for repeat offences, and operators found to be promoting illicit money games could be imprisoned for up to three years. In addition, unregulated gambling could cost operators up to ₹50 lakh ( approx. $60,000) or two years in jail. The government’s zero-tolerance stance highlights a new era of enforcement.
Traditional play fuels digital market growth
When the results are combined, they lead to one clear conclusion: habits that precede internet gaming by generations are a major factor driving India’s iGaming sector. State lotteries, Teen Patti and cricket all predate the internet, and their cultural weight continues to shape online behaviour.
The tale of iGaming in India is not about people learning to gamble; rather, it is about a country coming up with new ways to express traditions that date back decades or even centuries. The market is finally developing into something that is both controlled and distinctively Indian thanks to the PROGA Act’s strictness and the custom of Diwali.
Asia’s undisputed regional heavyweight lands in Manila, 31 May to 03 June 2026. Backed by PAGCOR and powered by 16,000 delegates, SiGMA Asia delivers two levels of game-shaping influence. If you’re serious about the region, this is the room for you.
