Facebook is currently rolling out fantasy games that will be based on sports and TV series for all Android and iOS users, says an Inc42 report. This feature will be first rolled out in the US and Canada later extending to other countries including India.

Facebook’s decision to roll out the Facebook Fantasy Games is looked upon as a method to dub traditional games such as La Liga, MLB postseason, and prediction-based games as a simpler format.

Some pictures shared by Facebook reveal that the fantasy gaming arena looks more like a private group. Furthermore, with Pick and Play, Facebook users will be able to score points for predicting real game-winners.

This new feature will allow Facebook users to play with their friends by creating a private league and watch leaderboards of their games.

For instance, Buzzfeed, a private fantasy contest player will be able to retarget participants through Facebook’s marketing tools. This addition of fantasy games will increase a user’s time on Facebook.

Currently, Dream11, Myteam11, Hala Play, MPL Cricplay, etc dominate the Indian fantasy gaming industry, with cricket fantasy sports having picked up momentum during past years over other types of sports.

In 2020, many users joined various fantasy sports platforms and this skyrocketed the number of users in 2016 from 2 million to 100 million. 

Furthermore, 14% of smartphone users in India are engaged in at least one fantasy gaming app. This helped raise the revenue to over $340 million in 2020, raising expectations for the market to start to touch $3.7 billion worth by 2024. 

According to a report by Inc42+, fantasy gaming startups raised $180 million as funds between 2014 and H1 2020. This valuation amounted to contributing 58% to the total funding secured by gaming startups. 

As of now, fantasy sports are permitted all across the country, except in some southern states such as Tamil Nadu. Furthermore, to boost the confidence of investors and startups, NITI Aayog, the Indian government’s think tank, is considering national-level SOPs for online fantasy sports platforms in India.