BREAKING NEWS
India’s online gaming industry has swiftly transformed from a niche pastime into a booming pillar of the digital economy. In recent years, this sector has recorded astonishing growth in both scale and reach. The country’s online gaming community swelled to around 488 million people in 2024, marking an increase of 33 million in just one year. In 2025, the user base is expected to exceed 500 million gamers.
The surge includes both casual gamers and real-money card game enthusiasts. This is because playing a rummy game online or joining a virtual cricket league has become as routine as watching live matches on TV. The industry’s revenue mirrors this growth. Currently valued at around $3 billion, it is projected to nearly triple to around $9 billion in the next few years.
These massive numbers mark the steady and sustained evolution of online gaming in India.
One of the most telling aspects of this growth is how it cuts across social and geographic boundaries. Thanks to affordable smartphones and some of the world’s lowest mobile data rates, the player pool has expanded dramatically beyond young men in metro cities.
Industry reports also credit this shift to the influx of female users and gamers from semi-urban and rural regions. The community includes a wide range of participants, from students in Lucknow and homemakers in Coimbatore to shopkeepers in Tezpur and retirees in Nashik. Interestingly, 66% of Indian gamers come from non-metro areas.
Language accessibility has been another major driving factor. On many platforms, around 75% of users prefer content in Hindi or other regional languages. Game developers have responded by localising both interfaces and storylines. Games in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu have brought lakhs of new users into the fold. The industry has thus opened up the vast indigenous market simply by breaking the English-language barrier.
Within this growing user base, several distinct gaming formats have emerged. Casual games like arcade challenges and simulations have emerged as crowd favourites. In 2024 alone, India logged 8 billion app downloads, and hyper-casual and simulation titles topped the list.
But casual games aren’t the only success story. Skill-based competitive avenues, especially those that digitise traditional card games, are also seeing a major surge. The classic game of rummy has been reinvented in the digital format. Today, over 155 million players engage with real-time money gaming (RMG) platforms that offer rummy, poker and other virtual sports.
This is not merely a niche appeal. Around 110 million Indians indulge in online gaming every day. A large portion of this traffic is headed to rummy app and virtual game leagues. Rummy’s cultural familiarity gives first-time users a comfortable point of entry into online gaming. Modern rummy apps are also intuitive, mobile-friendly and vernacularly accessible.
Beyond rummy, multiplayer mobile shooter games, virtual contests, and digital board games are also crossing age, gender or geographical barriers and making online gaming mainstream.
Behind the scenes, many layers of multidimensional infrastructure are driving the growth of online gaming in India.
With UPI handling over 17 billion transactions a month, even users in remote regions can transact easily online. The ubiquity of UPI payments also reduces friction within games. Players can top up their rummy app wallets, subscribe to premium features and purchase extra turns with just a few taps.
Parallel to the growth in payments infrastructure, regulatory compliance and user protection have also matured. India’s gaming associations have joined hands to embrace a common Code of Ethics that includes KYC verification, stringent age checks and voluntary spending limits to promote responsible gaming.
Another critical piece of the puzzle is India’s growing capacity to produce games, not just play them. No longer confined to metros, game development studios have emerged in tier 2 cities like Surat, Kochi and Ahmedabad. That’s not all. The diverse ecosystem around online gaming, which includes design, programming, testing, moderation and support, is creating myriad jobs beyond game development alone.
Given all this momentum, experts agree that India is only getting started. The community’s confidence manifests in many ways, among which is the flood of capital into the online gaming sector. Investments in this sector crossed the $2.7 billion mark between FY20 and FY24.
A closer look at the industry reveals startups scaling rapidly and global players entering the market. Monetisation avenues have also diversified to include in-app purchases and brand partnerships. Cultural attitudes are shifting, too. Conversations about virtual cricket leagues and online rummy games have moved in from the periphery and become dinner-table chatter.
If the current trends hold, India’s silent yet steady buildout of its gaming ecosystem may just make it a global heavyweight in online skill-based gaming and RMG.
India’s online gaming industry has swiftly transformed from a niche pastime into a booming pillar of the digital economy. In recent years, this sector has recorded astonishing growth in both scale and reach. The country’s online gaming community swelled to around 488 million people in 2024, marking an increase of 33 million in just one year. In 2025, the user base is expected to exceed 500 million gamers.
The surge includes both casual gamers and real-money card game enthusiasts. This is because playing a rummy game online or joining a virtual cricket league has become as routine as watching live matches on TV. The industry’s revenue mirrors this growth. Currently valued at around $3 billion, it is projected to nearly triple to around $9 billion in the next few years.
These massive numbers mark the steady and sustained evolution of online gaming in India.
One of the most telling aspects of this growth is how it cuts across social and geographic boundaries. Thanks to affordable smartphones and some of the world’s lowest mobile data rates, the player pool has expanded dramatically beyond young men in metro cities.
Industry reports also credit this shift to the influx of female users and gamers from semi-urban and rural regions. The community includes a wide range of participants, from students in Lucknow and homemakers in Coimbatore to shopkeepers in Tezpur and retirees in Nashik. Interestingly, 66% of Indian gamers come from non-metro areas.
Language accessibility has been another major driving factor. On many platforms, around 75% of users prefer content in Hindi or other regional languages. Game developers have responded by localising both interfaces and storylines. Games in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu have brought lakhs of new users into the fold. The industry has thus opened up the vast indigenous market simply by breaking the English-language barrier.
Within this growing user base, several distinct gaming formats have emerged. Casual games like arcade challenges and simulations have emerged as crowd favourites. In 2024 alone, India logged 8 billion app downloads, and hyper-casual and simulation titles topped the list.
But casual games aren’t the only success story. Skill-based competitive avenues, especially those that digitise traditional card games, are also seeing a major surge. The classic game of rummy has been reinvented in the digital format. Today, over 155 million players engage with real-time money gaming (RMG) platforms that offer rummy, poker and other virtual sports.
This is not merely a niche appeal. Around 110 million Indians indulge in online gaming every day. A large portion of this traffic is headed to rummy app and virtual game leagues. Rummy’s cultural familiarity gives first-time users a comfortable point of entry into online gaming. Modern rummy apps are also intuitive, mobile-friendly and vernacularly accessible.
Beyond rummy, multiplayer mobile shooter games, virtual contests, and digital board games are also crossing age, gender or geographical barriers and making online gaming mainstream.
Behind the scenes, many layers of multidimensional infrastructure are driving the growth of online gaming in India.
With UPI handling over 17 billion transactions a month, even users in remote regions can transact easily online. The ubiquity of UPI payments also reduces friction within games. Players can top up their rummy app wallets, subscribe to premium features and purchase extra turns with just a few taps.
Parallel to the growth in payments infrastructure, regulatory compliance and user protection have also matured. India’s gaming associations have joined hands to embrace a common Code of Ethics that includes KYC verification, stringent age checks and voluntary spending limits to promote responsible gaming.
Another critical piece of the puzzle is India’s growing capacity to produce games, not just play them. No longer confined to metros, game development studios have emerged in tier 2 cities like Surat, Kochi and Ahmedabad. That’s not all. The diverse ecosystem around online gaming, which includes design, programming, testing, moderation and support, is creating myriad jobs beyond game development alone.
Given all this momentum, experts agree that India is only getting started. The community’s confidence manifests in many ways, among which is the flood of capital into the online gaming sector. Investments in this sector crossed the $2.7 billion mark between FY20 and FY24.
A closer look at the industry reveals startups scaling rapidly and global players entering the market. Monetisation avenues have also diversified to include in-app purchases and brand partnerships. Cultural attitudes are shifting, too. Conversations about virtual cricket leagues and online rummy games have moved in from the periphery and become dinner-table chatter.
If the current trends hold, India’s silent yet steady buildout of its gaming ecosystem may just make it a global heavyweight in online skill-based gaming and RMG.
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