Cricket mania is a reality in India and other Asian countries besides Europe — with the Americas also catching up lately — where top cricketers are treated like ‘VIPs’ and being even described as God in the Indian media. In view of this exciting sports business scenario, Play Games24x7 unveiled its new fantasy sports platform “My11Circle” to offer cricketing fans — including those following this sport online – a new, simple and fun-filled experience of fantasy cricket. This new fantasy sports app will be available for download from 1st February 2019.
Bhavin Pandya, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Play Games24x7, told media here today that in this app, cricket fans can create their own fantasy team by selecting players from both sides in a match and, on the basis of the performance of their selected 11 cricketers, a team owner can win exciting cash prizes. “Ít’s a mirror of games happening in the actual world where one can choose the teams before even the game takes place,” he said.
“Fantasy Cricket is a novel product where the dynamics are different from other games, and since Indian fans worship cricket, all cricket events — from IPL and overseas tours to ICC championships — are like festivals for the Indian fans. As per the IFSG Report, online fantasy gaming has witnessed a boom in India with the user base seeing exponential growth, right from 20 lakh in 2016 to above 4 crores in 2018,” he said, adding that with this pace sustained, India is all set to overtake the record of the USA and Canada which has 5.93 crores ‘Fantasy Sports’ users.
“What these numbers clearly show is that the growing number of enthusiastic fans online are all ready to form their own Fantasy teams and enjoy this new form of gameplay. Play Games24x7 is ushering in a fresh impetus with “My11Circle” which is fast, smooth and offers great cash rewards, besides live player statistics and also fastest score updates for its players available on the platform,” Pandya said.
Saroj Panigrahi, Business Head, My11Circle, said it took four months of ‘inhouse’ efforts to build this cricket product where, “whenever a ball is bowled, you see it in a few seconds.”
“There is no chance of bookies penetrating this system for illegal betting or influencing the game,” he emphasized while describing cricket as a leisure game. “In 1968, the Supreme Court had said playing Rummy is legal and this decision was echoed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in late 2017. Fantasy Cricket is legal and is being treated almost like a religion in India where cricket-lovers and others can follow their favourite team players in action.”
“Our app has all details – including statistics about cricket players and their teams — for assisting participating online players in picking their choice of teams and cricketers for every live match taking place,” he said.
Highlighting the company’s goal to offer multiple games in this format, he said “Our focus on understanding player behavior has enabled us to provide awesome game playing experiences. My11Circle currently has international and domestic cricket games to select from, and players can select from practice or cash games post registration. Dream 11 is presently the largest player in Fantasy sports.”
Pointing out ‘Play Games24x7’s history of successful growth across different product platforms, Panigrahi said “Fantasy sports have a great potential in our country and complement Play Games24x7’s existing portfolio perfectly.”
Describing “Play Games24x7 Pvt. Ltd.,” he said this company was launched in 2006, as an online desktop and mobile gaming platform that has leveraged technology to bring to people the gaming experience in Indian card games like “Teen Patti” and “Rummy” that were earlier only restricted to the living room during the festivities, but could now be played at the click of a button anytime, anywhere day on mobile and desktop at a competitive level in the limitless digital world.”
While the company earlier had investment from Tiger Global Management — a leading US-based technology-focused hedge fund, it launched ‘Fantasy Cricket’ on My11Circle, ‘Rummy’ on RummyCircle and ‘Teen Patti’, ‘Rummy’, ‘Poker’ and ‘Bet Cricket’ under the Ultimate Games banner, besides recording cumulative twenty-eight million registrations and downloads for all the games put together.
“Where Rummy and Poker are concerned, the players are mostly over 25 years of age — with the core audience being above 35 years — in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. With entry fees of around Rs 5, 10 to 1,000, we highlighted a variety of cash prizes including Rs one crore during Diwali 2018. We will do the same with Fantasy cricket by introducing large prizes too even as more and more players keep participating in the app,” Pandya said.
“Rummy is a niche game, whereas cricket is a sport liked by one and all. We are trying to gauge what the customers want. All this is part of the Rummy circle launched in 2009 and we now have over two lakh active players on this circuit with lots more expected to come in,” he told the media while adding “We are working on adding a brand ambassador. In this market, there is no such player in this sphere of activity and so we are doing our marketing on digital media, besides going later on television, radio and so on.”
