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.

The Devastating Financial Impact

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.

India’s Expanding Online Gambling Economy

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 network have allowed online gambling to shapeshift and survive.

The Hidden Layers of the Gambling Economy

Behind the legitimate gaming economy is a much harder-to-track illegal market. A 2025 report by public-policy organisation CUTS International estimated that the 15 largest unauthorised online betting platforms received more than 5.4 billion visits from India during the 2024-25 financial year. It estimated annual deposits on illegal gambling platforms at about $100bn and documented the use of phone banking, mule bank accounts and mobile applications to move money.

The money is generated through several layers of the online betting economy. Operators earn from amounts users stake or lose, while legal gaming platforms have built businesses around entry fees and commissions. Advertising, celebrity endorsements, affiliate networks and user acquisition add further commercial incentives.

Just one such gambling app, Mahadev Online, is estimated to have generated about 430 billion rupees (about $5bn) over seven years, according to prosecution documents filed by India’s financial crimes agency, the Enforcement Directorate. But while at one end are enormous sums flowing through betting networks, at the other are families struggling to understand where their money went.

Experts and police officials say these cases cannot establish that gambling alone caused the deaths. Suicide is complex and can involve multiple factors. But they show how financial losses, addiction, shame and pressure can collide.

Research has also examined the relationship between gambling disorder and suicide. A 2026 meta-analysis of 14 observational studies found significant associations between gambling disorder and suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and suicide mortality, although the strength of those associations varied across studies and regions.

For families, however, the crisis often begins with a simpler question: Where did the money go?