According to Statista, a company specializing in market and consumer data, the US sports betting industry is growing apace. The legal sports betting revenue is forecast to reach $2.5 billion by 2021-end, and by 2025, grow to $8 billion. In a recent report published in The European Business Review, Gross gambling revenue (GGR) in Europe, including online lottery, online casinos, and sports betting, was worth 24.7 billion Euros in 2020. The region’s online gambling market is expected to reach $94 billion by 2024.
Such hard numbers are hard to find for Nepal that outlaws every kind of gambling, including sports betting. Still, such betting is evidently on the rise. By sports betting, we do not mean casual wagers between friends and families. ApEx has found many Nepalis who have become professional gamblers by using local bookmakers and online betting websites. So how big is the illegal Nepali sports betting market?
“How can we have data of something that’s illegal and completely under the radar?” replies Narayan Prasad Pokhrel, Deputy spokesperson and information officer at Nepal Rastra Bank, the country’s monetary regulator. “We are aware that some people are using local wallets and financial channels to circulate sports betting money and we are working to find the culprits.” As for cryptocurrency trading, all Pokhrel has to say is that it is an illegal activity that NRB strictly discourages.
Spokesperson for Nepal Police Basanta Bahadur Kunwar says the police too have no clue. “If it were regular gambling like playing cards or rolling dice, I could give you exact figures based on arrests made, but even estimating the volume of online gambling transactions is difficult,” Kunwar says.
ApEx talked to over a dozen or gamblers betting on international sporting events, including the Tokyo Olympics. One had lost Rs 100,000 in a year, while another had parted with Rs 40 million in under three years.
In the recent Euro Cup, we found people who bet as low as Rs 100 on a one-off match to someone who bet Rs 10,000 on every single match. Some occasional betters wagered as high as Rs 500,000 on a single match. According to our back-of-the-envelope calculation, around 3,000 people could have betted in the tournament, for a total haul of Rs 30 million. The annual Indian Premier League, say those in the know, is an even bigger draw for betters, with at least 20 times that sum put up for wager every year. Anecdotal evidence suggests the trend is on the up, and it could get a lot worse if left unchecked.
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