The Indian Premier League (IPL) truly stands out as the crown jewel of T20 cricket, captivating the hearts of sports fans across the nation.
Since its launch in 2008, the IPL has reigned supreme as the biggest sporting event in a calendar year and grown bigger and better with each passing year, carving a special spot for itself among other T20 leagues.
Beyond the excitement of the game, there’s an industry that flourishes, attracting not only local fans but also a global audience eager to get involved.
Every year, hordes of people get their dose of the IPL by actively participating in fantasy gaming, online betting, or prediction apps—all in a bid to join in on the fun and make some money during the exciting peak cricket season!
The IPL, in particular, has sparked a surge in betting activities. Over the years, more offshore betting sites have established themselves in India, making it very easy for Indian bettors to sign up, fund their accounts via a wide assortment of payment methods, including UPI, and jump right into the fun of online betting! As a result, more users are now going online to place their bets.
Now valued at over $100 billion, the Indian betting industry comes alive during the IPL and shows no signs of slowing down throughout the tournament. This IPL season, the demand for online games and apps has reached unprecedented levels, leading to a temporary outage of UPI (Unified Payments Interface), the nation’s most trusted and commonly used payment system.
The current season has really pointed out how fragile the UPI system can be when subjected to an unprecedented load. This year, we’ve seen several noticeable disruptions to UPI services, with one outage lasting an incredible 95 minutes while an IPL match was on!
A few weeks ago, enthusiastic cricket fans went online to place bets, putting severe strain on the resources underpinning the UPI infrastructure. Unfortunately, this led to a pause in payment, and fund transfer requests carried out via UPI came to a screeching halt.
UPI, which already processes over $3 trillion in transactions annually, witnesses an even more dramatic spike during the IPL season, which is directly related to the extreme betting activity. This dramatic increase in the rate at which transactions occur is pushing the limits of the existing infrastructure.
The servers underpinning the fast payment infrastructure are already having a tough time keeping pace with the surge in transactions linked to the growing betting craze, which presents a notable challenge for Indian banks.
Vaayu Saxena from Mybettingsitesindia.com notes that many betting sites like Stake have been offering users the option to make payments using alternative methods such as cryptocurrency, which adds convenience and ensures anonymity. However, Indian bettors mainly prefer to use fiat currencies and convenient payment methods like the UPI.
Most users in India are relatively new to cryptocurrencies, and there is no real incentive for them to consider using alternative payment methods like crypto when there’s a massive crypto tax that can eat into their profits.
They find it really convenient to use a payment method that they’ve gotten accustomed to fairly quickly: the ubiquitous UPI. Besides, several UPI betting sites in India now allow individuals to transfer funds seamlessly, helping them place bets faster and easier than ever before.
As more users start using UPI for their betting site deposits and withdrawals, the strain this could put on the UPI infrastructure is enormous. The UPI infrastructure’s capability to manage the growing volume of fast transactions during such peak times will be a vital challenge in the upcoming seasons.
The IPL is going to grow bigger and better with more fixtures likely to be introduced in the seasons to come, which means more matches for bettors to engage with. This means betting activity would go through the roof, and the banking sector has its task cut out: to develop reliable and scalable solutions that can prevent any disruption like the one we witnessed this season.
Will it deliver? That’s the million-dollar question.
