Gaming
Poker for People: Moneycontrol introduces first online, offline tournament
MUMBAI: Moneycontrol, a business and financial online platform of Network18, has joined hands with The Spartan Poker, an online gaming platform to announce ‘Poker for People’.
A one-of-a-kind competition, Moneycontrol introduced an online and offline poker championship to its users for the very first time. The tournament, with a prize of Rs 25 lakh will offer the poker enthusiast a chance to try their luck at the table and take home a cash prize.
With the game of poker being highly skill-based that requires utmost foresight, planning and the ability to take calculative risks, Moneycontrol draws a parallel between the card game and the stock market for their audience.
To participate, one can register themselves on a page created on the Moneycontrol website. This will avail them a ticket to the live game to be held in Mumbai on 29 March 2020. The top 20 players from each qualifier will get guaranteed seats at the main event.
Each of these 16 qualifiers will be a freezeout tournament, indicating a win-or-bust format, which won’t allow a contestant the option for a re-buy should they lose. These 16 rounds will see a total of 320 players qualify for Main Event.
Moneycontrol’s business head Gautam Shelar, said, “Moneycontrol, as a brand, believes in empowering its audiences with the latest financial know-how and equip them with information and advice that will help them make smarter and better investment decisions.”
He added, “Poker is purely a skill-based mind game where the outcomes are decided by the aptitude and analytical capability of the player, which is extremely similar to the stock market. In addition to their stellar poker skills, we are confident that with the lessons learned through their stock market dealings and investments, participants shall use these experiences as well as they look to take home the grand prize.”
Gaming
Dream Sports sees 100 plus exits after gaming ban forces overhaul
Company splits into eight units as real money gaming law hits revenue.
MUMBAI: For a company built on fantasy leagues, reality has suddenly rewritten the rulebook. More than 100 employees have exited Dream Sports, the parent of Dream11, after the company reorganised its operations following India’s ban on real money online gaming. The shake up came after the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 came into force in August 2025, prohibiting games where users deposit money expecting winnings. The regulation struck at the heart of the fantasy gaming industry and dramatically affected Dream Sports’ core business, wiping out about 95 percent of its revenue and all of its profits.
In response, the Mumbai based company shifted into what chief executive officer Harsh Jain described as “startup mode”, splitting its operations into eight independent business units in December.
Around 700 employees were reassigned across these newly formed ventures based on their experience and interests. However, roughly 15 percent opted to leave the company.
A spokesperson for Dream Sports said many of those who exited were experienced professionals accustomed to running scaled businesses rather than early stage ventures.
“Since some of these employees were experienced with running high scale businesses and not startups, around 15 percent chose to leave and join other scaled companies or start ventures of their own,” the spokesperson said.
Despite the departures, the company noted that the attrition rate is only slightly higher than its earlier level of around 10 percent before the ban. Dream Sports now has close to 950 employees and is not currently hiring, choosing instead to focus on stabilising its existing workforce.
The restructuring has transformed Dream Sports from a fantasy gaming company into a broader sports entertainment platform. The eight units now operate independently, each focusing on different segments of the sports and technology ecosystem.
These include Dream11, sports streaming platform Fancode, sports travel service DreamSetGo, mobile game Dream Cricket and artificial intelligence initiative Dream Sports AI, which includes sports analytics platform Dream Play.
Other ventures include fintech product Dream Money, open source initiative Dream Horizon and the philanthropic arm Dream Sports Foundation.
As part of cost saving efforts, Dream Sports also relocated its headquarters from Bandra Kurla Complex to Worli earlier this year. The new office, called Dream Sports Stadium, brings teams from its various brands together under one roof to improve collaboration and operational efficiency.
Jain had earlier said the company removed bonus lock in timelines for employees hired in recent years, allowing those who wished to leave to exit with pro rata payouts.
“We want people who are fully into the startup mode and willing to work for it, and we will share that reward if it comes,” he said.
Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream Sports was last valued at 8 billion dollars after raising 840 million dollars in 2021 from investors including Falcon Edge Capital, DST Global, D1 Capital Partners, RedBird Capital Partners, Tiger Global Management, TPG and Footpath Ventures.
The new gaming law has forced several companies in the fantasy gaming sector to either shut down or pivot their business models, signalling a significant reset for one of India’s fastest growing digital entertainment industries.
