{"id":7824,"date":"2020-07-05T16:06:39","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T16:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=7824"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:54:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:54:27","slug":"illegal-gambling-on-covid-19-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/illegal-gambling-on-covid-19-in-india","title":{"rendered":"Illegal gambling on Covid-19 in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In absence of professional sports, gamblers have turned to betting on pandemic statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>India.- With professional sports still banned in India due to Covid-19 prevention measures, illegal bookmakers have been taking bets the pandemic itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Delhi, where lockdown began on March 25, gamblers have been betting on lockdown extensions, infection rates and other figures related to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bets are usually placed by phone calls to illegal bookmakers, Gambling Insider reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One bookmaker told the Hindustan Times that clients were using the unlicensed system to repay debts or pump money into their businesses during lockdown restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sports betting is allowed only on horse-racing in India, but the International Centre for Sports Security in Doha estimates the illegal sports gambling market is worth about US$150 billion per year. Unlicensed <strong><em><a aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-online-gaming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">online gaming has also been gaining ground<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In absence of professional sports, gamblers have turned to betting on pandemic statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"In India, the absence of professional sports due to COVID-19 restrictions has led to a surge in illegal betting on pandemic-related statistics. Unlicensed bookmakers are facilitating these wagers, highlighting the significant scale of the country's black market, estimated at US$150 billion annually for sports gambling, and the growing prevalence of unlicensed online gaming.","focusai_entities":"Hindustan Times, Gambling Insider, International Centre for Sports Security","focusai_location":"India, Delhi, Doha","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"India Regulatory Outlook","query":"What specific legislative or enforcement actions are Indian authorities considering to address the proliferation of illegal betting and the associated financial crime risks?"},{"label":"Market Monetization Potential","query":"Given the estimated US$150 billion illegal sports gambling market, what is the projected GGR potential for a regulated iGaming market in India, and what are the key barriers to its establishment?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16334,155],"tags":[229,58],"class_list":["post-7824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-asia-news","category-sports-betting-news","tag-gambling","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7855,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7824\/revisions\/7855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}