On June 4, two of India’s largest media outlets revealed that they had partnered to create a new fantasy sports website. The combination of the India Today Group, the largest print and electronic media company in India, with the most watched Hindi news channel, AajTak, creates a dynamic partnership that should give their site the opportunity to dominate this market.

The new sports portal is called “AajTak 11” and was launched recently at the Salaam Cricket 2019 Summit hosted at the Lord’s Cricket ground. This new fantasy Cricket site is the innovation of Australian cricketer Shane Warne, as well as Indian Cricket captain Sunil Gavaskar. The chairman and editor-in-chief of India Today, AroonPurie, is also a key member of this new venture.

According to the website, this new fantasy sports venture offers customers the opportunity to play for free, and win cash money prizes. The AajTak11.in website explains that those customers who are investing real money will be offered the platform at a discounted rate or for free in the future.

The platform itself is provided by the Corporate Fantasy League, a fantasy sports provider operated in Delhi by Experience Global Mobile Technologies Private Limited.

More money is flooding into the growing Indian fantasy sports market. Sports Gaming UK, the parent company of free-to-play betting operator India Bet, has invested in PlaySafe Games Pvt. Ltd., the operator of fantasy gaming site Scoring11.

According to reports from GLaws.in, with the investment, Sports Gaming now owns 20% of PlaySafe. India Bet Head of Operations Harshit Mehta owns the remaining 80%.

This isn’t the only news for Scoring11. It’s also secured a white-label platform from Norwegian B2B fantasy sports provider Scout Gaming, making it the third company to secure such a solution. Mehta commented on the news, saying:

“We see how fantasy Sports has had a strong growth in the country in the last couple of years. With players like Dream11 who are extremely popular at the forefront, we have explored the possibilities of expanding our value chain to operator business focusing exclusively on fantasy sports.”

On Wednesday, Halaplay Technology announced that they had received Rs 40 cr ($5.8 million USD) in funding from Nazara Technologies and Delta Corp.  Both of these companies already had strong ties to Halaplay, so it was not surprising to see them get involved in the new round of funding.

In December, Nazara had joined with Kae Capital to provide Halaplay with the same amount of investment. This was part of an effort by Halaplay to reach between $15 million and $20 million USD in funding from investors, with Nazara providing nearly 20% of the total amount that was provided.

Earlier this month, Delta joined with their subsidiary, Gaussian, to purchase nearly 32,000 equity shares of Halaplay Technologies.  This gave Delta and Gaussian nearly 15% of the total capital shares in the fantasy sports website.

Halaplay Technologies has had no problem receiving investments. Since beginning operations in January 2017, they have seen substantial growth in the number of consumers using the fantasy sports website. In 2018 alone, the company saw a tenfold increase in the number of users, and many believe that they could see a 500% or greater increase this year as well.

On Friday, India-based Delta Corporation announced that they had purchased 31,994 equity shares from Halaplay Technologies, the founder of HalaPlay, an online fantasy sports website. The nearly 32,000 shares constitute 15.52% of the capital shares in HalaPlay and the final transaction to purchase the shares will be concluded by May 1.

In a filing required by the stock exchanges, Delta announced that they had invested the money to purchase the equity shares. As part of the transaction, Guassian Networks Private Limited, a subsidiary of Delta, will be transferring their fantasy sports division to HalaPlay. That will give Gaussian an additional 4.03% of the equity shares in HalaPlay.

That Delta would purchase shares in HalaPlay should come as no surprise to anyone. In November 2017, it was announced that Kae Capital and Nazara Games had each invested in the fantasy sports platform. HalaPlay had created some rather sophisticated algorithms to help users draft teams according to behavior and statistics the analytics had determined. Their programs were able to learn on the fly, helping to improve the experience for users.

Almost exactly a year later, it was announced that Nazara was looking to expand the operations. Through investments from WestBridge Capital and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the company sought to create four additional locations, with Africa and India being the primary destinations.

India’s central government has been steering clear of taking a stance regarding the legality of fantasy sports in the country and still doesn’t seem to want to get involved. According to an exclusive report by GLaws, the government dodged a question recently from a member of parliament (MP), stating only that the states can evaluate for themselves the industry and decide how to govern it.

On February 8, MP AP Jithender Reddy of Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) raised an unstarred question (a question that doesn’t necessarily require an immediate answer) to try and determine if the central government was considering regulations for the fantasy sports market, as well as the number cases pending in consumer courts related to the activity and whether or not fantasy sports was viewed as a game of skill or a game of chance per the Supreme Court’s definition.

The parliamentary member also wanted to know if fantasy sports was considered “gambling and betting” according to the country’s constitution and if there were plans to establish laws that would govern financial transactions related to the industry.

Pon Radhakrishnan, the Union Minister of State for Finance, responded to the inquiry, only said that betting and gambling is regulated under Entry 34 of List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution, adding that the individual state governments are capable of introducing their own laws on the subject.

Tax authorities in India swooped down the offices of MyTeam11 Fantasy Sports Pvt. Ltd. in Jaipur over allegations that the fantasy sports company has been evading its tax responsibilities, along with other irregularities.

According to local media reports, the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) “detected tax evasion worth crores” by the company, which operates online fantasy sports portal MyTeam11. The platform offers skill-based fantasy sports games, including cricket, which fall within the ambit of “betting” under Goods and Services Tax (GST) laws.

India’s new tax regime, introduced in July 2017, had gambling and race club betting grouped in the highest tax bracket—28%—along with other “luxury” services such as cinemas and five-star hotels. In the case of MyTeam11, DGGI officials said the operator “was not paying GST on the amount collected by them through games.”

During the raid last week, regional officers of the tax directorate seized records and documents from MyTeam11’s office. DGGI said the fantasy sports operator must pay the tax equivalent to “the entire amount deposited by the customers and not just on the rake or commission collected by the company.”

This is a guest contribution by Manoj Trivedi. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

On hearing the word Blockchain, a lot of possibilities enter one’s mind. ICOs, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, SegWit and what not! The penetration of Blockchain in the technology world has exceeded to next level and is increasing day by day with new industries adding up to the ecosystem. Making this even more interesting is the implementation of blockchain technology for fantasy sports industry.

About fantasy sports

Not a very old name in the list of rising industries, fantasy sports encapsulates the idea of people participating and winning money via online sports. The concept is to create virtual teams consisting of players as per the choice of the participant and once these teams are created and are ready to play, the scores of players are determined according to their performance in the real time game.

Because it requires a substantial degree of skill, judgment and discretion, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in India has ruled that playing fantasy sports cannot be considered gambling.

The ruling, made by Justice Amit Rawal, was in response to Varun Gumber, a resident of Chandigarh state, The Times of India reported.

Gumber, according to the report, accused fantasycricket.dream11.com of illegal gambling after he lost money while playing some games on the website. The petitioner claimed he deposited INR50,000 ($785) on the website, which he lost when he participated in two fantasy sports matchup games. Gumber asked the court to criminally prosecute the Dream11 under the Public Gaming Act, 1867.

The court, however, rejected Gumber’s petition on grounds that he himself “created a virtual team,” and chose the players himself, which shows that fantasy sports games require substantial skill, efforts and statistics.

UK fantasy sports league organizers have been warned not to conduct their operations in a manner that requires them to obtain a sports betting license.

With a new football season just around the corner, the UK Gambling Commission is warning fantasy sports organizers not to get “caught out by gambling law.” On Monday, the UKGC issued a warning to would-be organizers of fantasy football leagues that operating their league as a business requires a UKGC-issued pool betting license.

The UKGC’s pool betting license category encompasses all betting activities – horseracing, football, other sports and fantasy football – in which customer stakes are pooled and the payouts are calculated by dividing the total pool value (minus commission) by the number of winners.

The UKGC exempts certain fantasy operators from this pool betting licensing requirement, such as privately run contests among office colleagues. However, these fantasy operators must be able to demonstrate that their fantasy pool is not being run as a business.

An Australian businessman is eyeing to bring his advertisement-paid version of daily fantasy sports beyond the land down under.

To make it possible, Business Insider Australia reported that Sydney entrepreneur Daniel Simic will need to raise AUD10 million ($7.62 million) as capital.

He said daily fantasy has caught on with wider appeal than traditional fantasy games because there was no season-long commitment.

“We’ve already signed up over 100,000 people to play, which is well beyond our initial expectations. We’re also seeing strong retention rates, so fans are coming back for more competition and prizes,” he said. “Millions of new daily fantasy sports players have come into the market in just the past few years alone. By making it more accessible and offering the opportunity to win real prizes, without any entry fees, we hope to take fantasy sports to the next level in Australia and around the world.”

Despite regulatory woes in the U.S., the number of fantasy sports players in North America has grown 3.3 percent this year.

Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) reported on Tuesday that the fantasy sports industry remains to thrive in North America, posting a record of 59.3 million players this year compared to last year’s 57.4 million.

The figure, according to the fantasy sports group, is also more than double than the number of players in 2009, which is only 28.4 million.

FSTA pointed out that the data is now reflecting that fantasy sports in North America has become a US$7.22 billion industry. That includes spending more than $1 billion on such “ancillary” activities and goods as draft parties, food and drink and fantasy-related memorabilia.