India · Reviewed for India · Sports guide

Sports betting in India beyond cricket: football, tennis, eSports, kabaddi and UFC

Cricket takes the marketing budget and most of the market depth, but the seventeen books we track price a great deal more than that — and the distance between them widens the further you move from a T20 fixture. A brand that opens two hundred lines on an IPL match may hold four on a Pro Kabaddi raid and nothing at all on a BGMI final. What follows is a sport-by-sport account of where the depth genuinely sits, which settlement clause bites when a match ends early, and where an Indian kick-off time turns a nominal listing into a book that can actually be played through.

Sports we cover

Practical sports check: a headline sport count tells you almost nothing, because a discipline joins the total the moment one outright market exists for it. What separates these books is per-fixture depth — how many lines open on one ISL match, whether a kabaddi tie carries raid and defender props or only a winner, and which rule applies when a tennis player retires mid-set or an eSports map is replayed following a technical fault. Those three tests sort the pool faster than any number printed on a homepage.

Anyone whose betting begins and ends with the IPL is better served by the cricket guide, which handles that rack in its own right; this one picks up where it stops. Worth pairing with it are the payment methods comparison, the bonus rules and the mobile app review, for a practical reason: a secondary sport is almost always where a second account gets opened, and a second account repeats the deposit, verification and payout sequence from the beginning. A tight price on a Valorant map counts for nothing behind a cashier that stalls on the first withdrawal.

Best operators for non-cricket sports

1

1xBet

8.2★★★★★
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2

Melbet Long-tail Sport

8.7★★★★★
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3

Stake Editor’s Pick

9.5★★★★★
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4

22Bet

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5

Dafabet

8.4★★★★★
  • Asian Handicap depth
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6

Betway

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7

Parimatch

8.6★★★★★
  • Cricket sponsorship heritage
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Cricket: the baseline every other sport is measured against

Cricket sets the scale for everything else here. A single IPL fixture carries more than two hundred lines at the deepest books in the pool — match winner, innings and session totals, fancy markets priced over by over, top batsman and top bowler, and an exchange layer at Crickex and Dafabet on top of all of it. Nothing else played in India comes near that on an ordinary weeknight. The full treatment of the IPL, the T20 and ODI World Cups, the longer formats and exchange pricing sits on the cricket guide. The point to carry forward is that two hundred cricket lines prove nothing whatsoever about a book’s football or kabaddi rack: several of the strongest cricket names in this pool run the thinnest secondary books in it.

Football: the ISL, the European leagues and where depth actually differs

Football is the deepest non-cricket category by a wide margin, and the only one where coverage is effectively uniform: all seventeen brands price the top five European leagues — the English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 — alongside the Champions League and the Europa League. Uniform coverage is not uniform depth. On a mid-table Serie A fixture the strongest books open somewhere around a hundred and fifty lines while the weakest stop at fifteen or twenty, and virtually the whole difference sits in corners, cards, player shots and the bet-builder layer; around the main result market the boards look much the same wherever you open them.

Where the Indian calendar diverges from the European one:

Pure Win and Parimatch each publish a daily prediction page for the European fixtures, written in-house and refreshed each morning. They are promotional output, not analysis with money standing behind it, and the tell is consistent: selections lean towards accumulators and towards short prices, because both raise turnover. The squad and injury detail inside them is generally accurate and is the part worth taking; the confidence ratings are not. On the market side, the two lines that repay learning first are the double chance, which folds three possible results into two at a reduced price, and the Asian Handicap, which removes the draw altogether by handing one side a fractional head start. Dafabet runs the deepest handicap ladder in the pool, quartering lines where most books work only in halves, and that granularity matters most on the ISL fixtures where two evenly matched sides make a level line unattractive.

Tennis: the slams, the tour beneath them and the retirement clause

All four Grand Slams are priced across the pool — the Australian Open in January, Roland Garros through late May, Wimbledon in July and the US Open closing the run at the end of August — together with the ATP and WTA Masters series and the bulk of the 500-level calendar. Below that tier the field thins fast: Challenger and ITF matches reach only 1xBet, Melbet and 22Bet, and even there the margins widen visibly against the main tour. Stake and 22Bet hold the tightest prices on a slam match winner, somewhere near 3%, and across a fortnight of daily play that gap is worth more than any promotional credit attached to the account.

The list of markets itself barely moves from brand to brand: match winner, correct set score, total games over the match and inside each set, a handicap on games, and whether a tiebreak is reached. Retirement is where the rulebooks part company and where nearly every dispute starts. The common standard, stated plainly by LeoVegas and followed by most of the pool, voids everything if a player withdraws before the opening set is complete and lets bets stand once that set has finished — a retirement at 5–4 in the first therefore returns the stake, while one at 1–0 in the second does not. A minority of books instead require the full match to be completed before any market settles, which converts a retirement into a losing bet, with no stake returned to the account. That clause repays a careful read before a five-set draw begins, not after.

eSports: where BGMI, Valorant and Dota 2 actually get priced

Quick answer: 1xBet has the deepest eSports rack (Dota 2, CS2, LoL, Valorant, MLBB, BGMI). Melbet matches on Dota 2 + CS2. Stake and 4rabet cover tournament finals.
OperatorDota 2CS2LoLValorantMLBBBGMI
1xBet
Melbet××
Stake××××
4rabetfinalsfinalsfinals×××
1Winfinalsfinals××××

1xBet and Melbet are the only two books in the pool worth opening an account for on eSports alone, and the gap between them and the rest is structural, not seasonal: both carry regional qualifiers and open markets days ahead of a series, while the others hold back until a final arrives. BGMI is the sharpest dividing line of all, being the title with the largest Indian player base and the smallest number of books willing to price it — 1xBet stands alone in this pool on that one. Map and round handicaps, first blood and total maps are standard wherever coverage exists; player-level props mostly are not. The settlement clause that matters is what happens to a series remade after a technical pause, which is normally void at map level and standing at series level, and the timing suits India better than most sports do: the major Asian circuits play into the Indian evening and skip the overnight scheduling that makes other sports awkward to follow live.

Combat sports and table tennis: UFC, boxing, MMA, ITTF

A UFC card prices in three layers. The moneyline on each bout comes first, then the method of victory — knockout, submission or decision — and then the round or round-group in which the fight ends, with a separate line on whether it goes the distance. 1xBet, Stake, 22Bet and Dafabet carry all three layers on every numbered event and on the Fight Night cards as well; the remainder of the pool prices the main card properly and leaves the prelims on a bare moneyline. Markets follow the position on the card, not the fame of the name, so a headline bout involving a reigning champion such as Islam Makhachev opens the same market set as the co-main event, with the difference appearing in stake limits instead of in variety. Numbered events begin in the small hours Indian time, so barely any of the Indian stake reaches the live book once the walkouts start.

Boxing splits by the size of the card. World-title fights are priced everywhere in the pool, Olympic tournaments appear at the larger books while the Games are running, and regional cards reach only 1xBet and Melbet. Promotions outside the UFC — ONE Championship, Bellator and the PFL — are carried by 1xBet and Stake, and ONE counts for more in India than its Western profile suggests, purely because its cards run in the Asian evening. Table tennis then fills the parts of the calendar nothing else occupies: 1xBet holds the deepest book on it, with Melbet and Stake behind, and all three price the ITTF World Tour, the World Championships and the major Asian tour events. Matches last twenty to forty minutes and run almost continuously across timezones, which is what makes the sport the standard in-play filler on a quiet weekday.

Basketball, NBA

NBA coverage runs uniform across the pool — regular season, playoffs, Finals, Conference titles and season-long MVP outrights are standard everywhere — and the book divides into the same three primary lines at every brand: the spread, the total and the moneyline. The spread does most of the volume, for the straightforward reason that a moneyline on a mismatched fixture prices out at a level nobody wants to stake into. Depth beyond those three is uneven. Quarter and half lines are widespread; player points, rebounds and assists props are present at the larger books and simply absent from the smaller ones. EuroLeague is priced by 1xBet, Melbet and Stake, and the WNBA reaches 1xBet alone. One scheduling problem is unavoidable from India: tip-off for most NBA fixtures falls between five and eight in the morning IST, which pushes nearly all domestic volume onto the pre-match book and leaves the in-play widget largely unused.

Hockey: HIL (India), NHL

The word covers two unrelated sports here and the books treat them very differently. Field hockey — the Hockey India League during the seasons it runs, plus the FIH Pro League and the Olympic tournament — reaches Parimatch and 22Bet, and stops at the result and total-goals markets with little in between. Ice hockey carries the far deeper rack: the NHL is priced by every brand in the top ten through the regular season and the playoffs, with puck lines, period totals and goalscorer markets available throughout. The KHL is the more practical of the two for an Indian bettor despite the smaller book, because its fixtures settle in the Indian evening while NHL games run through the small hours.

Horse racing: Indian Derby and global meets

Domestic racing runs as a circuit spread through the year, not as one continuous season. The Indian Derby is staged at Mahalaxmi in Mumbai in the opening weeks of the year, the Bangalore and Hyderabad Race Clubs hold their own meets, and Pune takes the monsoon dates. Offshore coverage of those cards is thin and inconsistent, which is precisely the reverse of the international picture: Royal Ascot, the Cheltenham Festival, the Kentucky Derby and the Melbourne Cup are priced by Dafabet, 22Bet, 1xBet and Betway. Dafabet holds the deepest racing book in the pool by a clear distance, and the reason lies in the terms, not the fixture list — each-way fractions, the number of places paid and the non-runner rule are stated per meeting there, never buried inside one generic clause covering the whole sport.

Kabaddi: Pro Kabaddi League and Asian Games

Quick answer: Melbet has the deepest Pro Kabaddi League book (raid markets, defender markets, tournament-long props). 1xBet covers PKL plus Asian Games kabaddi. Parimatch is the historical PKL sponsor.
OperatorPro Kabaddi LeagueAsian Games kabaddiRaid / defender markets
Melbet✓ deepest
1xBetpartial
Parimatch××
4rabetmainstream markets××
1Winmainstream markets××
22Betmainstream markets××

No standalone kabaddi application exists in any meaningful sense. The sport is always a section inside a multi-sport offshore app, and anything marketed as a dedicated kabaddi product is either a reskinned build of one of these same books, or an unlicensed operation with no payout record to its name. Within the pool the depth order holds across a full Pro Kabaddi season: Melbet opens raid-level and defender-level props on every tie, 1xBet prices the league alongside the Asian Games tournament, and Parimatch — the competition’s historical sponsor — sticks to mainstream lines in spite of the association. Evening kick-offs are the practical advantage kabaddi holds over almost every other sport covered here, since PKL ties are played to an Indian schedule and the in-play book is genuinely usable, not a nominal listing carried for the sake of completeness. Our Pro Kabaddi League betting guide works through the raid, defender and tournament-long markets tie by tie.

Sports FAQ

Is sports betting allowed in Islam?
Mainstream Sunni and Shia jurisprudence treats it as haram, falling under maysir as described in Quranic verses 5:90–91. The religious position and the legal one are separate questions and neither determines the other.
What is X2 in soccer betting?
The double chance covering two of the three results: the bet wins if the away side wins or the match is drawn. 1X is the mirror image, covering a home win or a draw, and 12 covers either team winning with the draw excluded. All three trade at shorter prices than the single outcomes they replace.
What is spread in basketball betting?
The handicap line applied to the final score. Backing the favourite requires them to win by more than the stated margin; backing the underdog pays if they lose by less than it or win the game outright. Half-point spreads exist to remove the possibility of an exact tie on the line, which would otherwise void the bet.
Where is the ISL broadcast in India?
On JioStar, which requires a subscription; no operator in the pool streams the fixtures itself. The odds board and the pictures therefore come from two separate sources, and the seven brands pricing ISL — Stake, Yolo247, 4rabet, 1Win, Parimatch, 22Bet and 1xBet — supply only the first.
Where is the deepest kabaddi book?
Melbet, which is alone in opening raid and defender props on every Pro Kabaddi tie rather than only on the marquee ones. 1xBet follows, adding the Asian Games tournament to its league coverage. Parimatch sponsored the competition historically but keeps to mainstream lines.
Which book takes eSports most seriously?
1xBet, the only one in the pool carrying all six major titles including BGMI, and the only one opening regional qualifiers as well as the finals themselves. Melbet is level with it on Dota 2, CS2, LoL and Valorant, and stops short of MLBB and BGMI.
Which prices are tightest on tennis?
Stake and 22Bet, both holding a slam match-winner margin close to 3%. LeoVegas covers all four Grand Slams with steady in-play depth and states its retirement rule plainly, which is the clause most likely to decide an unfinished match.
How well is horse racing covered?
Dafabet, on the international meets, with each-way terms and non-runner rules published per meeting. 22Bet, 1xBet and Betway also price the Indian Derby and the major overseas festivals, though domestic Indian cards get thin treatment everywhere offshore.
Are the daily prediction pages worth following?
Pure Win and Parimatch both publish in-house picks each morning. Treat them as promotional copy and nothing more — the selections lean towards accumulators and short prices because both lift turnover. The squad news and injury detail inside them is usually accurate and is the part worth keeping.