In Bangladesh, there has been a rising phenomenon of mobile gambling taking place, particularly among under-35’s. A lot of gambling operators are welcoming these bettors in offshore online casinos as it’s population of 173 million is a hefty market, and smart phones are far from fully penetrating the country. Internet connectivity is rapidly spreading and people are enjoying gaming, in particular iGaming more and more as time goes on.
Since the Public Gambling Act of 1867, gambling has been illegal in Bangladesh, as is the case in the majority of Islamic countries, since the religion expressly forbids it. However, in practice, people are no less enthused to play anyway. That has done very little to stop people from using proxies and VPNs to play. Today, we talk about some fascinating facts, providing a well-rounded picture of the Bangladeshi gambling scene.
Favorite games
Bangladeshis are not allowed to gamble in person, besides on horse-racing, so this funnels people to the myriad of online games. Some of the most popular games people are gambling on in the nation are:
- Teen Patti: a game sharing its roots with poker and introduced by the British, also known as three-card brag. This game can be played by 3 to 6 players, and whoever has the best 3-card hand wins the pot, without the stream element used in poker. Players bet in rounds and the same types of tournament formats are played in like in poker.
- Rummy: the same game as in the West but with apps offering their own twists and designs
- Slots: Classic, fast-paced slots with themes appealing to the Bangladeshi sensibilities like Muslim symbols and colors
- Andar Bahar: a simple and fast paced Indian card game where people pick one side or the other and pick which will have the last card dealt to it. The odds are about 50/50
- Poker: these are great for people who like to socialize
- Baccarat: Bettors bet on “Player” or “Banker”, which hand will win. They can also bet on a tie. Whoever’s hand is closest to nine wins.
- Roulette: Both reminiscent of the European and American versions.
- Sports betting: football and cricket predominate here
64-Million-Dollar-a-Year Industry
Experts are anticipating that this figure is going to show a compound annual growth rate of 6% through 2031. This is not a reflection of people growing progressively more stoked about gambling, but rather the rise in technology and the advancement of vendor offerings in a variety of apps.
Over 100 million smartphone users
As previously mentioned, right now, far from everyone who would gamble online given the chance is actually able to gamble right now, since they simply haven’t been able to buy a smartphone, or they have no reason to, since they wouldn’t have any service if they did. So with the current state of Internet technology, this number is certain to continue to climb. With the lack of any local competition, including the possibility of government-operated gambling to curb the appetite, nearly anyone who wishes to gamble flock right into the waiting arms of foreign operators.
Over 500 Active Gambling Sites Catering to Bangladeshis
This is how many overseas platforms are enjoying an influx of Bangladeshi takkas, teen patti, poker, andar bahar, and the whole nine yards. Locals do Baji login for instance with all the games there in Bangla, the national language. The sports betting options are particularly salient, with the ability to spot bet on:
- who the next corner kick will be by
- the result of the next play
- whether a particular player scores
- series and combination bets
Soccer is the most bet upon sport, but the Indian IPL is certainly a big hit there too, as are international cricket matches. E-sports are also heating up there which people love to bet on, as kids today grow up playing mobile games like League of Legends more than they play physical sports.
Many of these platforms also offer financial services available in the country like bKash and Rocket.
18-to-35-Year-Old Men
Men still dominate this audience, so a lot of the gaming is skewed toward fast-paced and skill based games. More females are participating there too though as of late, particularly in social gambling where no actual money is bet yet money is spent on upgrading characters, buying new skins, and entering social tournaments.
3/4 of Gaming on Smartphones and Tablets
As in nearly all developing nations, far from everybody has a laptop or desktop. What the vast majority of people do always have handy to game on are mobile devices. When 5G becomes widespread in Bangladesh it will dramatically impact how much people can gamble too, because this technology is a massive leap from 4G.
On top of that, cloud computing is now allowing people to game on their devices with the computing power handled by remote cloud-based processing centers, so cheap devices will no longer be an impediment in being able to gamble. Meanwhile, the actual price of smartphones has continued to drop and drop.
98% SMS Open Rate
Since people are always holding cell phones, SMS marketing is huge in Bangladesh. Once SMSs are sent out, nearly all of them are opened, which puts email open rates to shame. Of these, a whopping 90% are read within 3 minutes.
4% CTR and 1.5% Deposit Conversion Rate on Gambling Marketing SMSs
This proves how effective text messages are in this country. Operators are able to simply send text messages at the perfect time for promos. TSMSs can be sent out right before football and cricket messages come on, featuring salacious bonuses.
20-30% higher engagement rates are recorded on evenings and weekends.
They can send text messages by age and gender cohort just at the time where track records have proven they click the most.
Emerging Trends
We have seen a large movement as of late toward governments liberalizing gambling, since they have proven incapable of stopping it, whether or not they are able to bust some people. Currently a great many countries have liberalized it with very tight regulations.
Examples of these are:
- Many European countries, such as Germany and Netherlands which recently nationalized legal gambling
- The United Kingdom
- 7 Northeastern US states like Pennsylvania
- Special gambling districts like Macau in China
- Brazil
Then there are a lot of nations where gambling can be provided by the state. Though this takes away a lot from the entertainment factor, it allows for far greater mitigation of the social ills that go along with gambling, such as addiction and money laundering.
Some of these countries are:
- Canada
- Norway
- Poland
- Austria
- Sweden
Countries only offering gambling to foreigners only in specific resorts are:
- Japan
- Egypt
- Monaco
- Curacao
Even Muslim countries have been warming up to gambling liberalization. UAE recently decided to legalize it. In North Africa and Lebanon, it’s for the most part tolerated. We may indeed eventually see Bangladesh follow one of these paths as well. It appears Dakka will take this route too.