The rise of gambling culture in India and elsewhere
- Anant Gupta
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
A look at the reasons I think have led to this.
In case you aren't aware, Indian options market is kind of big.
Here's articles if you are interested:
From CNBC:
"According to SEBI, over 90% of retail futures and options traders in its study lost money last year. Losses amounted to 1.06 trillion rupees, or roughly $12.5 billion, a 41% increase from the year before."
And it is not just the options market, there was a gambling boom with apps like Dream11 which allowed sports gambling (they call it skill based or whatever but let's be real). The good thing is the Indian govt banned these gambling apps. China already has a ban in place on gambling as well as Crypto. For political reasons, India cannot ban crypto and if we were to get our hands on stats, I'd wager people are losing money there too for the most part. While this post is India focused since I am an Indian and know a thing or two about India, I will add that some of this applies to the growth of gambling in crypto worldwide. Lets dive in:
Gambling is as old as time: Let's be real here for a second, we love gambling. Who doesn't want to be a big shot "Robinhood" (pun intended) and escape their hustle. It is addicting and has applied to humans throughout history. We love the idea of making big wins in one go. It is cool. Obvious and I wanted to get it out of the way first before going deeper.
Social Pressure to "make" it: Social pressure has always existed but been amplified with social media. There's 2 things going on here:
Easy for charlatans to sell courses: Social media allows fake gurus to show off and funnel people into a dream, where only they can save them from the underclass and promise them some magical secret that will help make loads of cash.
Lifestyle catchup: You see people living amazing life online and naturally want to replicate it. You see no path to making it through your regular work and turn to the casino to try your luck. Social media has made this worse.
Easy access with internet penetration: Let's face it, #1 and #2 are made possible due to cheap data and internet availability to the masses. Everyone can easily trade now.
Rising populations and house prices: I am kind of repeating the reasons for declining birth rates here about which I have a separate post, but I promise I am not repeating myself. It is true that most people feel out of investment options as housing is too out of reach for majority of people. So they try their luck at gambling to make enough for their families or themselves.
Culture: This is very India specific, I think the only India specific point I have on here and the most important which kind of explains why India is so crazy re options: It is what I call "lazy babudom culture". Let me explain. For the longest time, India has had a corrupt useless government bureaucracy which only exists to steal from its citizens. The damage they have done is simply immeasurable. Millions of lives lost due to neglect, more in bad condition. There is no real law enforcement or judicial system. The culture of risk taking, to build things, industrialize, is non-existent. Very few people are willing to do this. Unelected beareaucrats hold all the power and are invincible. So, that is what many want to do, to enter the goverment services to extract wealth for themselves or enter some other services like engineering or medical. Manual work or assembly line work is looked down upon. Not considered "prestigious". Disrespected. This is the opposite of someplace like China where industry is prioritised and corruption is dealt with. I am not saying China is perfect or whatever, just providing comparison. So you have a youth population that doesn't want to work in factories, has little faith in law to enforce decent working conditions and wages in those said factories, not everyone can be a government administrator or an engineer nor any other major pathways to success. They turn to the magic internet money. Their is little financial regulation stopping shady services advertising the dream to them. It is a cultural problem where you have an unwillingness to build from top to bottom. Politicians and govt officials not interested in heavy industrialization, society looking down on Blue Collar work, no law and order. Perfect recipe for options trading. (Sidenote: Also why India will never reach China levels and is kind of doomed to be a weird mix of poverty and developed nation forever).
At the end of the day, it is not fair in my opinion to look at the people gambling away on options with their wealth. They don't have much to begin with, most of them anyway, so limited pathways will make you try out your hand. You become desperate and look out for hope. It is not necessarily out of greed or an addiction, but a genuine desire to escape what they think is a miserable life. What is the solution? I don't know, a cultural shift that emphasizes on building stuff and not looking down on people would be a start. But I don't have hope for it.
Comments