{"id":3739,"date":"2023-04-03T10:04:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T10:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/magazine\/?post_type=blog&p=3739"},"modified":"2025-08-02T14:11:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T08:41:21","slug":"the-allure-of-fantasy-sports","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"The Allure of Fantasy Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2017, at the height of Premier Kabaddi League\u2019s popularity, Joseph George created his kabaddi team on the then emerging fantasy sports platform Dream11. With an entry fee of \u20b933, he assembled a team of top scorers, raiders and defenders, but in an unusual choice, also picked Vikash Kandola. Kandola\u2019s performance hadn\u2019t been particularly spectacular that season, but that day, he played exceptionally well. George won the princely sum of \u20b950,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

George, who works in sports broadcasting, hit the jackpot three more times, playing through PKL and the Indian Super League with this trick of picking one player who he felt was demonstrating potential but hadn\u2019t yet shown results. \u201cI used to play regularly back then,\u201d he says, \u201cI used to be invested in the sport. I\u2019d look at practice runs, previous match performances and team news; count every permutation and combination, creating multiple teams and just doing everything to make sure I was winning.\u201d As for that money: After a 30% tax cut \u2014 a rule that applies to winnings of \u20b910,000 and above on Dream11 \u2014 he could withdraw it almost immediately.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

George may have been an early mover, but over the past five years or so, sports lovers have taken to this format of participative sport so completely that India is now considered to be the world\u2019s biggest fantasy sports market, according to <\/span>a Federation of Fantasy Sports\u2013Deloitte report<\/span><\/a>. A whopping 13 crore people are now regulars on apps like Dream11, My11Circle, MyPlay11, Mobile Premier League (among others). By 2025, <\/span>the market size for fantasy sports is projected to reach <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>1.65 lakh crore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cricket is naturally the biggest engagement driver, but football, hockey, kabaddi and other sports have their patrons too. And the allure of fantasy sports is strong. \u201c<\/span>You know how sports fans are,\u201d says Abhishek Nair, a sports management graduate from Loughborough University in the UK. \u201cEveryone has an opinion, and everyone wants to show off their knowledge. Dream11 and fantasy sports in general taps into this impulse. If you know so much, why don\u2019t you make money off of it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And money has been made, hand over fist. Nair remembers picking Harbhajan Singh as the captain of his fantasy cricket team in a 2018 Chennai versus Mumbai IPL match. He had paid an entry fee of \u20b921 and ended up winning \u20b94,000. \u201cBut I was in the end disappointed. Singh was having a really good game, which meant I was soaring in the Dream11 rankings. Then Imran Tahir dropped a catch off his bowling. If he hadn\u2019t, I could have won a few lakhs that day.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a tech-savvy, largely young population in a country where sports is more popular as an avenue of entertainment than ever before, it is that interactivity and ease of making money (\u201cthere are no channels, no additional steps, no middlemen in getting your cash\u201d) that is especially alluring. It\u2019s getting tougher to win, George and Nair tell me: <\/span>As fantasy sports have advanced, getting more nuanced and detailed, every tiny movement on the scoreboard now has a massive impact on the player\u2019s standing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, it can also get addictive. <\/span>\u201cBetting is illegal in India, but fantasy sports platforms have found a way to bypass those laws; they call it ‘playing’, not ‘betting’. They\u2019re very careful with the terminology,\u201d says Nair. \u201cBut as a player, there is always the temptation to put in more to be able to take away more.\u201d While he exercises caution in this regard, never exceeding \u20b930 by way of investment, he also feels that fantasy sports platforms could do more by way of messaging about playing responsibly \u2014 something that he has seen betting apps in the UK, like Paddy Power and Sky Bet, undertake intensively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the game is afoot. \u201cThere are people who watch and follow the sport obsessively,\u201d says Nair. \u201cI know people who would put money on a Zimbabwe vs Namibia cricket match on Dream11. They would\u2019ve done their research, opened the teams\u2019 last 10 – 15 score cards, seen how each player is playing. There are people who go to that extent of analysis before they invest.\u201d And those investments can lead to huge rewards, sure. \u201cBut at the end of the day, no matter how much you analyse, it\u2019s sports. It\u2019s a live match,\u201d says Nair. \u201cYou can only predict so much.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nidhi Gupta is a freelance writer and editor based in Mumbai.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, at the height of Premier Kabaddi League\u2019s popularity, Joseph George created his kabaddi team on the then emerging fantasy sports platform Dream11. With an entry fee of \u20b933, he assembled a team of top scorers, raiders and defenders, but in an unusual choice, also picked Vikash Kandola. Kandola\u2019s performance hadn\u2019t been particularly spectacular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_updated_date":""},"blog-category":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Allure of Fantasy Sports<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Allure of Fantasy Sports\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-02T08:41:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/imaages-hosting-1fin.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/assets\/ogimage\/Blog.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@1FinanceHQ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/\",\"name\":\"The Allure of Fantasy Sports\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-04-03T10:04:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-02T08:41:21+00:00\",\"description\":\"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/\"]}],\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"\"}},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blogs\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"The Allure of Fantasy Sports\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/\",\"name\":\"1 Finance\",\"description\":\"Our single focus, to get you to re-imagine your Personal Finance What does this mean ? There\u2019s a process to grow your money while you peacefully sleep, which only the top 5% have access to. It\u2019s what makes the rich, even richer.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Allure of Fantasy Sports","description":"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Allure of Fantasy Sports","og_description":"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.","og_url":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/","og_site_name":"Blogs","article_modified_time":"2025-08-02T08:41:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":750,"url":"https:\/\/imaages-hosting-1fin.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/assets\/ogimage\/Blog.png","type":"image\/webp"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@1FinanceHQ","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/","url":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/","name":"The Allure of Fantasy Sports","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-04-03T10:04:13+00:00","dateModified":"2025-08-02T08:41:21+00:00","description":"Explore insightful articles on finance, investments, and money management on our blog. Stay informed and make wise financial decisions.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/"]}],"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":""},"image":{"@id":""}},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/the-allure-of-fantasy-sports\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blogs","item":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The Allure of Fantasy Sports"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/#website","url":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/","name":"1 Finance","description":"Our single focus, to get you to re-imagine your Personal Finance What does this mean ? There\u2019s a process to grow your money while you peacefully sleep, which only the top 5% have access to. It\u2019s what makes the rich, even richer.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/3739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1finance.co.in\/1f-dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-category?post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}