India’s Gambling Habit

KalaGato
2 min readAug 16, 2017

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Gambling as you know is illegal in most parts of India.

Despite all the pseudo — moralistic chest thumping that we like to indulge in; we’ve traditionally been a gambling nation. Even some of our most important religious texts evolved from one man’s foolish love of gambling. So of course there are Apps for this and of course they’re getting traction.

The government of India differentiates between games that are legal and illegal by deciding whether they are games of skill or games of luck.

As a category, Teen Patti is massive. Most developers think it necessary to use cleavage baring cartoon models to attract users (why am I still surprised). However, due of a rather debatable judgment by the Hon’ble Supreme court of India in 1957 (and then a string of subsequent questionable judgments) Teen Patti Apps can’t allow users to play with real cash since its considered a game of luck and is therefore illegal.

If you’ve ever played cards in Delhi during the Diwali season — you’ll know that luck has little to do with winning.

This space (card gaming) is chaotic and crowded. There’s not one but a number of potential winners. Regulation usually lags behind innovation, so I’m not surprised by the legal framework around card games; just amused. I still believe that big businesses can be built in this space. We’re just scratching the surface.

Incidentally, betting on horse racing is legal since it’s a game of skill (obviously).

Thanks for your time,

Ashish
- Team KG

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You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com

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KalaGato
KalaGato

Written by KalaGato

KalaGato is an automated audience profiling, segmentation and targeting platform that helps brands reach their customers.

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