India National Cricket Team players, including the stalwarts Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, and Rohit Sharma, are set to suffer a massive financial blow after the ban was imposed on the real-money online games.
With the fantasy sports companies shutting down their real money games, the Indian cricketers are likely to lose between INR 150-200 crore a year from these terminated contracts, as per a report in Cricbuzz.
BCCI loses Dream11 as sponsor
The Indian government recently passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, which bans all forms of online money games, including fantasy sports platforms.
The new law was passed in both houses of Parliament and received presidential assent in August 2025. This new bill prohibits users from participating in any online games where money is deposited with the expectation of potential winnings, and any platforms violating these rules could face severe penalties, including up to three years in jail and fines up to ₹1 crore.
As this law came into effect, the real-money gaming platforms like Dream11 have been forced to shut down their paid contests. Dream11, which was valued at approximately $8 billion USD, has also pulled out as the title sponsor of the Indian cricket team, ending their ₹358-crore, three-year jersey sponsorship deal.
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, and other Indian stars suffer a massive blow
The fantasy sports and online gaming companies like Dream 11, My11 Circle, MPL, and Winzo had sponsored many Indian cricketers and spent heavily on advertising and endorsements.
Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, and Hardik Pandya were associated with Dream11, Shubman Gill, Mohammed Siraj, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rinku Singh, and Sourav Ganguly endorsed My11 Circle.
Virat Kohli was with MPL, and MS Dhoni had a deal with Winzo. However, with the fresh ban imposed, cricketers will be hit financially and lose their sponsorship deals will.
Kohli had a contract worth INR 10-12 crore annually, while Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni had signed INR 6-7 crore contracts. The less popular cricketers had deals of around INR 1 crore, and collectively, Indian cricketers are likely to lose between INR 150-200 crore a year.
The marquee cricketers, however, have a diversified portfolio and will not be as affected as some not-so-popular cricketers who relied heavily on fantasy platforms as sponsors.
IPL loses My11 Circle as associate sponsor
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has also been affected as it will lose My11 Circle as an associate sponsor, which was contributing Rs 125 crore a year.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were associated with the online gaming platforms, and they will lose between INR 10-20 crore a year.
Meanwhile, the Industry experts said that the advertising industry will lose close to INR 8,000-10,000 crore a year after the government’s action.
“In terms of overall advertising spends, these gaming companies contribute around 7-8 percent of the market. Nearly 80 percent of that will vanish, since real money gaming accounts for 75-80 percent of the overall gaming market. So that is one big impact. Roughly 7-8 percent of total ad spends and about 15-20 percent of digital ad spends will also disappear, because their share in digital advertising is higher,” said Karan Taurani, executive vice-president, Elara Capital, as quoted by Cricbuzz.