Lesson 3 of 3 · 8 min
When it stops being a game
Fantasy sports, betting apps and gamified F&O share one engine. The arithmetic that makes the average player lose, the warning signs, and where real help lives.
Fantasy sports, betting apps and a lot of what is sold as 'trading' share one engine: put money on an uncertain outcome, feel the rush, repeat. The apps are engineered like games on purpose — confetti, streaks, leaderboards, one-tap re-entry — because the design goal is the repeat, not your winnings.
And the platform takes a cut of every contest, which means the average player loses by construction, whatever the skill of the crowd.
The arithmetic nobody posts
- Individual F&O traders who lost money in FY25
- over 91%
- Average individual loss in FY25
- about ₹1.1 lakh
- Tax on winnings from online games
- flat 30%
SEBI's updated study of client accounts at the largest brokers. Its earlier study found 93% across FY22–24.
Several months of a first salary — and the average includes people who traded for a week and stopped.
On net winnings, with TDS taken by the platform — no basic exemption, no slab benefit. The tax rules treat 'gaming' winnings the way they treat lottery money.
Myth
“Sure, 91% lose — but I am obviously in the smart 9%.”
False
Everyone in the 91% believed this too; that is how they got there. Across millions of traders, a profitable year for some is what chance alone produces, and SEBI's studies do not find a stable group of consistent winners emerging. The belief that you are the exception is not evidence — it is overconfidence, the bias that funds the entire industry.
But somebody has to be in the 9%
KabirTara
Kabirasking
Somebody does end up in the small group that made money. Why is it daft to think it could be me? Someone has to be them.
Taraexplaining
Someone does. The question is whether being them is a skill you can aim at, or an outcome you only find out about afterwards. Toss enough coins and a few land heads nine times running.
Kabirasking
So the ones who made money were only lucky?
Taraexplaining
Some of them, some of the time — and from inside a good run it feels identical to being good at it. That is the expensive part: a winning run is the most convincing evidence anyone ever gets shown.
Kabirasking
That is an uncomfortable thing to sit with.
Taraexplaining
It is meant to be. Arguing with the odds is not the useful move. Deciding in advance what you can lose without it touching your rent is — and noticing the day you start playing to win yesterday back.
F&O — futures and options — is a legitimate hedging market that, on a phone screen, gets dressed up as the fastest game in town: expiry-day bets, ₹20 'entries', payoff screenshots.
SEBI has tightened the rules precisely because the population-level data looks like a gambling pattern, not an investing one — the site's article on SEBI's F&O study has the full numbers. The tell that analysis has quietly become the machine: trading to win back yesterday's loss.
| Sign | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Betting or trading to recover a loss | Chasing is the core loop of gambling harm — the loss sets the next stake, and stakes escalate |
| Hiding the activity or the amounts from people you live with | Secrecy is the first cost, and it arrives before the money is gone |
| Borrowing to play — credit cards, BNPL, app loans | The loop is now funded at upwards of 40% a year, and two compounding problems run at once |
| Mood tracking the outcomes | When the day's result decides the day's worth, the app owns more than your money |
Quick check
Why does the average fantasy-contest player lose even if every single player is skilled?
Check yourself
1 / 3
Kabir asks
Every player in a fantasy contest is genuinely skilled. Why does the average one still lose?
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