‘Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025’, which regulates online gaming, has got the approval of President Draupadi Murmu. Now this bill has become law. After this, Dream Sports has announced that it has closed every type of paid contest on its fantasy sports platform Dream 11. The company has now shifted to a completely free online social game.
The step has been taken to ban all types of online real money games through ‘Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025’. The bill was approved by the Rajya Sabha on 21 August. It had already passed from the Lok Sabha. The new law not only imposes online money games, but also promotes e-Sports, Educational and Social Online Games.
‘Will respect the law’
Dream Sports said in a statement on LinkedIn, “Although we believe that progressive regulations would have been the right way to move forward, but we will respect the law and fully follow the ‘Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025’.” The statement said, “When we started this journey as a sports tech company 18 years ago, we were not even 1 percent of the size of the American fantasy sports industry. Fantasy sports products of Dream 11 were our way to improve sports for the whole of India. This passion, trust and med in India, India, we became the world’s largest fantessy sports platforms.” At the end of the statement, it said, “Meet in the second innings.”
Dream Sports has stopped all ‘Pay to Play’ contests on Dream Pix. Dream Pix is a recently launched fantasy sports app, which allows users to form a team of 4-khiladis and compete in both innings. The company’s Casual Real-Mani Gaming (RMG) app Dream Play has also closed the paid contest. It currently allows users to play a free version of Ludo online.
Dream sports started in 2008
Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth started Dream Sports in 2008. It raised a fund of $ 840 million in November 2021 under the leadership of Falcon Edge, DST Global, D1 Capital, Redbird Capital, Tiger Global, TPG and Pavement Ventures. At that time the company’s valuation was estimated at $ 8 billion. In addition to Dream 11, the company has sports content and commerce platform fancode, sports experience platform DreamsetGo, mobile game development unit Dream Game Studios and Brands and Brands and A Dream Sports Foundation. In FY 2023, the operational revenue of Dream Sports increased by 66 percent to Rs 6,384.49 crore, which was Rs 3,841 crore in FY 2022. Dream 11 has a major contributor to the company’s revenue.