‘The family paid the price’: India’s deadly online gambling crisis

Nizamabad, India – When Harish began betting online, his family did not imagine that a smartphone would eventually consume their savings, land and, ultimately, their lives.

The 22-year-old from Yedapally village in the Nizamabad district of India’s southern Telangana state started betting online during the COVID-19 pandemic. What began with small wagers gradually turned into heavy losses and borrowing.

Police say Harish eventually spent about 1.8 million rupees (more than $21,000 in 2024) on betting and borrowed money from at least 12 people in his village.

His parents tried to rescue him from the growing debt. His father, Ranganaveni Suresh, 53, was a farmer who also ran a grocery shop. His mother, Hemalatha, 45, worked alongside him. The family sold a plot of land to repay some of what Harish owed. It was not enough. As the debts mounted, Harish and his mother began working for a caterer to raise money. But the pressure continued to grow.

On October 3, 2024, Harish and his parents died by suicide at their home. “We did not know how much money he had borrowed until people started coming to our house asking for their money back. By then, the situation was already out of control,” said Mukesh Kumar, a cousin of Harish.

It is a refrain that is increasingly echoing across India, as the country grapples with the growing and fast-adapting challenge of an online gambling addiction crisis. The country had about 591 million gamers in 2024, according to an industry report. India’s online gaming sector generated about $3.7bn that year — a figure that was then projected to more than double to $9.1bn by 2029. Gaming involving money accounted for about 86 percent of the industry’s revenue in 2024.

In 2025, the Indian Parliament passed a law banning all online gaming involving money, trying to plug regulatory gaps that platforms pushing internet betting were exploiting. However, smartphones, global connectivity and a black market ecosystem have allowed online gambling to shapeshift and survive.

The deaths in Yedapally offered India a glimpse of the risks surrounding its expanding online betting economy, where the promise of quick money can draw young users into repeated wagers, losses and debt.