A special session on fantasy sports will be held on the first day of Bhopal Literature Festival (BLF) on Thursday.

The three-day BLF  will begin with a panel discussion on the theme 'Fantasy Sports: Facts and Fallacies' by Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS).

 The session being organized by FIFS at BLF will have a presentation followed by a panel discussion conducted by FIFS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Anwar Shirpurwala including Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, Adviser to FIFS and Dinkar Vashisht, Adviser to FIFS.

Anwar Shirpurwala said, “Events like BLF help to build and understand a sense of community, trending topics, connect with people from different walks of life through intellectual and thought-provoking debates and dialogues.”

He further added that fantasy sports are played on a digital sports engagement platform, wherein users create virtual teams just before a sporting event using their knowledge of the sport, research and analytical skills for player selection and team building. Users then compete against teams from other participants based on data generated from the performance of on-field players. This is a fun get-together activity with co-workers, friends, and family.

Fantasy sports is different from other related online formats. It has already overtaken the United States of America (USA) as the largest fantasy sports market globally in terms of active user base.

The fast-growing fantasy sports sector is expected to contribute over Rs 24,300 crore to tax revenues and create over 12,000 highly skilled and technical jobs.

It has already attracted over Rs 10,000 Crore in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the fantasy sports industry in India has the potential to attract an additional Rs 15,000 Crore in FDI in the coming years.