Gaming

One Year After India Reset Its Gaming Industry, the Rebuild Is the Real Story

By Omar aka Crypt0 · Sep 17, 2026

In October 2025, India did something unprecedented among large economies: it switched off real money gaming, an industry worth about 6 billion dollars, almost overnight. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act prohibited every online money game, whether based on chance, skill, or both, along with their advertising and payment processing. One year later, the rubble has cleared enough to see what is growing in its place, and the early evidence suggests the reset is working exactly as its architects hoped.

Start with what was lost, because the scale explains the shock. Real money formats contributed roughly 71 percent of Indian gaming revenue during the 2025 fiscal year, according to consulting firm Redseer. Dream11 alone had more than 250 million users; WinZO had over 200 million, Zupee over 150 million. Global investors had poured at least 2.8 billion dollars into the sector over five years. 'Before the law, 95 percent of our revenue came from Dream11, and 100 percent of the profits,' Dream Sports CEO Harsh Jain told Mint. His summary of the aftermath has become the industry's defining quote: the base had to reset to basically zero, and whatever capital a company held was basically what it was worth.

What followed is the most interesting corporate rebuild in gaming. Dream Sports reorganized as what Jain calls a portfolio of startups, giving each new vertical an 18 to 24 month runway funded by past profits. The most visible bet is Dreamland, a watch along product for live matches with creators and community features, which drew around 25 million users during the T20 World Cup and is targeting 50 million during the IPL season. Around it sit a sports travel platform, a streaming and commerce business, an AI led wealth product, and a stockbroking platform. PokerBaazi took the harder road: it rebuilt its product around non real money poker and casual gaming, moved to a subscription of roughly 400 rupees a month plus in app purchases, and is exploring international markets after 13 years of domestic growth.

The deeper story is about what the money was hiding. Vishal Gondal, founder of Indiagames and co chair of the Indian Game Publishers and Developers Association, argues that real money gaming papered over thin original Indian IP and shallow game making depth, leaving the ecosystem dependent on incentives and payouts instead of storytelling, design quality, and gameplay. With the old model gone, he argues, India finally has the reason to build real games rooted in Indian culture that can compete globally. Nazara Technologies chief Nitish Mittersain puts the commercial logic plainly: real money converted 15 percent of users into payers, while in app purchases convert about 0.5 percent, which means the new products have to earn attention the old ones could buy.

The numbers are starting to cooperate. The Game Developers Association of India estimates the post reset market at 1.5 to 2 billion dollars and has set a vision of 10 billion dollars in annual gaming content exports and 100 billion dollars in value creation by 2035. India still has 500 million gamers, in Mittersain's phrase, an audience most countries would trade anything for. The open question is the Supreme Court's pending verdict on the old GST dispute, with potential industry exposure of 2 to 2.5 trillion rupees hanging over balance sheets like a storm still gathering. A favorable ruling clears the decks; the rebuild continues either way.

For the global industry, India is now the case study that matters most. It proved that an entire gaming economy can survive the removal of its dominant business model, and that the companies which endure emerge focused on games instead of transactions. The next Indian gaming giant will be built on gameplay, community, and culture, and given the size of the audience waiting, the world will be playing its games soon enough.

Sources

New to crypto? Read the crypto glossary, browse frequent questions, read our story, or explore the story archive.