Well. You have a point there. Gambling is banned in China, but it is allowed in Macau. So the Chinese gamblers travel to Macau and gamble there. This prevents valuable tax revenue from getting lost to other countries. On top of that, additional jobs will be created. But doing something like this is impossible in India. Here there is so much bad blood between the political parties and the opposition will burn down half the country, if any such measure is proposed.
There is legal gambling in India like Goa where i visited an yacht where gambling takes places and it was legal and that was my first casino experience to see what is going on and it is completely crazy just like Macau and there are many places where illegal casinos are functioning with the help of politicians and police and that is not the situation in India alone but some Asian countries too. It is the same like the legal dance bars in Maharashtra was closed and then the dance bars were run by political affiliated people.
^^ Sad to see only one cricketer made into this list. IMHO It shows that where cricket stands in comparison of other sports and clearly begging for more exposure in other parts of the world too, not just Subcontinent.
The issue here is that you cannot compare the earning power of Tennis Golf Football to cricket. Majority of these players in the top earning list have endorsements from different corporate companies and that can be achieved if you are under a good manager who can put together good endorsement deals and the popularity in different countries.