India has been under a pandemic instituted lockdown since March 25. For over five months, we are still working our way towards the unlock at a snail’s pace. While India has slowly emerged as the fastest-growing country in terms of the daily cases reported due to coronavirus, amidst a shattered economy, there are also a handful of fast-growing industries that are experiencing unprecedented growth — online gambling, for instance.

Over 70-90% of employed Indians are working from home whereas over a hundred million lost their jobs to the pandemic. The fact that these many Indians have time to kill and money to spend becomes clear as we see the steep scaling of online casinos and their revenue charts. The online gambling industry has multiplied its reach, traffic, and revenue by manifolds in India over the past few years.

The magnanimity of this surge, in a capsule, can be demonstrated by two powerful statistics; the collective traffic that online casinos in India record, reaching a tally of 80% of the total population, and the calculated prediction of the revenue generated by the industry reaching a soaring billion dollars.

The exponential success of the industry is majorly being attributed to two factors that laid the foundation before the pandemic struck — affordable 4G internet accessibility brought in by Reliance Jio in 2016 and the magnanimous shift of the Indian rural population to mobile gaming and gambling.

With the growth trends grabbing global eyeballs from various investors and gaming conglomerates, several international casinos are emphasizing on capitalizing on the Indian markets.

However, experts affirm that a deeper analysis of the online casino trends that work for international brands suggest internal reforms to customize content and practices for the country. Challenges faced by Indians on international online casinos are being actively identified and addressed; one of them being the problem of currency conversion and exchange fees.

Top International Casinos Shift From Dollars and Euros To Rupees

International casinos are making conscious efforts to make the growing Indian gambling community feel included by enabling Rupees (INR) transfers on their platforms. This change is being implemented in two major formats — customization and specialization.

Several leading global online casinos are resorting to customizing their Indian online franchisees by offering greater cash bonuses in Rupees to stay ahead of the potential local competition. As a part of this customization, these casinos not only offer transactions (deposits and withdrawals) in the form of Rupees but also gambling and betting on their platforms.

The welcome bonuses, sign up packages, that are offered up to thousands of Rupees are being used as the pivotal marketing strategy to lure in the masses. Frontrunners include the popular Swedish online gambling company LeoVegas, the Bayton operated, Maltese registered Spin Casino, and the Europa Casino which draw their marketing heavily on deposit bonuses of up to Rupees 80,000, 1,00,000, and 1,70,000, respectively.

Some of the major online casinos are going as far as studying Indian online spenders and their spending concerns. To capitalize on the rural online gamblers that still get intimidated by payment systems like Paypal and Skrill, simply offering more convenient transaction options like RuPay, Google Pay, Phone Pay, among other local options is a strategy that is working in their favor. Betway Casino, a subsidiary of The Betway Group with licenses in over 10 top countries and 5 online gambling brands was one of the first to start the trend by offering Google Pay as a payment option. Rizk and Royal Panda have also hopped on the bandwagon.

International online casinos going the route of customization are doing more than just offering rupees. They are offering to Indians what Indians like. All of the options are to be found on Indian comparison sites like Casino Captain.

While the list of such online casinos continues to expand by the second, it is important to note that the ambiguity in the legality of gambling online in India still persists. While states like Goa and Sikkim freely allow online and offline casinos to operate, populous states like Maharashtra and very recently Karnataka are determined to steer clear of online casinos by bringing in appropriate regulations in place.

However, the fact that the growth has also contributed to sustaining the crumbling economy cannot be overlooked by online gambling critics.

This has proved to be a boon to Indian online gamblers as the accessibility and convenience on larger platforms gives them a greater variety of online casinos to choose from. At the same, the business has pumped cash into the online markets.