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Playwin in JV with Sportech for sports-based gaming products
MUMBAI: Gaming and lottery company Playwin has announced its entry into a joint venture with Sportech PLC, a UK-based football gaming business ompany and owner of The New Football Pools.
The association will mark the launch of a broad-based online gaming platform for India. This association will enable Playwin to offer games which will be specifically tailored for the Indian audience. The new games are expected to be launched in Spring 2010 with new prediction and fantasy games initially centred around the most popular sports of cricket, football and Formula One motorsport.
This will be a 50 per cent JV and looks to capitalise on India‘s one billion population‘s passion for sport with the new gaming platform initially offering a set of sports prediction and fantasy games.
Playwin already offers various games that are based on international lotto game formats. Till date Playwin has given away more than Rs 80 billion in the form of prize money, making it one of the most successful forms of gaming within a short span of 7 years. Over 12,000 retail shops enjoy Playwin‘s patronage. The biggest jackpot win of Playwin has been bagged by a single winner with Rs 172 million on Playwin‘s Thursday Super Lotto.
Pan India Network CEO Amit Goenka said, “India is a sports loving nation and there is huge market for gaming. We are glad to have this association with Sportech considering a very wide base of sports fans in the country. With exciting sports games on offer, we are sure both Playwin and Sportech will see great success in the Indian market. Innovation has always been the backbone of Playwin‘s strategy since its inception in 2002 and basis of all our accomplishments. Moving ahead, we aim to attract and target a huge chunk of sport lovers through this joint venture”.
Sportech CEO Ian Penrose says, “This gives Sportech a great opportunity to launch sports-based gaming products into a growing and lucrative marketplace, and is the logical next step in Sportech‘s ambition to be an international gaming operator. We look forward to operating a successful business in India as we continue to pursue further international expansion opportunities.”
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
