India with a population of over 1.2 billion people comes across as an extremely lucrative market for the gambling industry but with only horse betting legalized, underground gambling providers are the ones who have benefitted the most.
India is slowly changing its stance on gambling and Sikkim, a very small state in India recently announced that it had legalized sports betting and will now pave the way for other states to push for the legalization of gambling. The fact that Sikkim has legalized sports betting has surprised many within the country as religious and political parties have always been opposed to the gambling industry.
Sikkim has issued licenses to three gaming providers who have already set up their infrastructure and digital technology to roll out sports betting. The home ministry has stipulated that Sikkim can only offer sports betting services to customers within the state for now. The biggest sport in India is cricket which is also a multi-billion dollar industry as India dominates world cricket financially and will clearly draw the most number of bets during the cricket season.
Sikkim will have to roll out extremely tight regulations to ensure that the industry is regulated and not manipulated by outside forces. There have been media reports in India stating that the underground betting industry is controlled by the mafia and they have been responsible for match fixing and spot fixing a number of international cricket matches.
Sikkim already operates two land based casinos and has the experience of successfully running a land based casino industry. The sports betting industry will be something new for Sikkim but state officials are confident that the industry will expand at a rapid pace and generate significant revenue for the state. An airport is scheduled to open in Sikkim before the end of 2017 and will definitely result in Sikkim bringing in a lot more tourists who will frequent the land based casinos and try their hand at sports betting.
In a statement, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Ugen T. Gyatso said
It is a big move for us. When horse racing is legal in our country, we can think of legalising betting in other forms of sports too. Also, we are hoping that we will be able to attract domestic tourists with this initiative.
Maarm International, one of the companies that received a sports betting license plans to open out a 6,600 square foot facility for its sports betting customers. The company is also aggressively marketing and promoting sports betting in Sikkim to make the local population aware of the sports betting process.
About The Author
