Samay Raina

Early life and education

Samay Raina was born on 26 October 1997 in Jammu, in the former Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, into a Kashmiri Pandit family with roots in Salia, in the Seer Hamdan area of Anantnag. He grew up in Hyderabad, where he was schooled, first at Ramadevi Public School and then at Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet. His father, Rajesh Raina, is a journalist, and his mother, Sweeti Raina, is a homemaker.

He moved to Pune for higher studies and enrolled in a print engineering course at Vidhyarthi Griha's College of Engineering and Technology. He later described the course as a waste of time, and began performing at open mic events in the city instead.

Career

Raina performed his first open mic on 27 August 2017 in Pune. He went on to open shows for established comedians Anirban Dasgupta and Abhishek Upmanyu, and later moved to Mumbai to pursue stand-up full time, performing in Mumbai and other cities across India.

In 2019, on the suggestion of comedian Aakash Gupta, he took part in Comicstaan 2, the Amazon Prime Video stand-up contest. He finished as joint winner with Gupta, sharing the Rs 10 lakh prize. In 2023, he performed at the Mumbai launch party for American DJ KSHMR's album KARAM, held at antiSOCIAL.

After a break from live performance following the controversy around India's Got Latent in early 2025, Raina returned to the stage with a nationwide tour, "Still Alive And Unfiltered", which ran from Bengaluru on 15 August to Delhi on 5 October 2025. He closed the tour's global leg at the Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York on 28 February 2026, becoming one of the youngest Indian comedians to perform at the venue.

On 7 April 2026, he released his debut comedy special, Still Alive, on YouTube, after almost a year away from the platform. The special, which runs for about one hour and twenty minutes, drew 22 million views in its first day and passed 53 million views within a fortnight. By November 2026 it had been watched more than 80 million times, and it has been widely described as the most-viewed stand-up comedy special on YouTube, although YouTube has not officially confirmed that record.

In September 2026, Raina announced his biggest India tour yet, "Samay Raina Live", running from November 2026 to April 2027 across Delhi, Jaipur, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai. The tour opens at Yashobhoomi in Delhi on 28 and 29 November 2026, and closes in Mumbai in April 2027. More than one lakh tickets were sold in under an hour during the pre-sale.

YouTube and chess

When outdoor events were cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, Raina began streaming chess games on his YouTube channel, on the suggestion of fellow comedian Tanmay Bhat. His audience grew after he invited the YouTuber Antonio Radić, known as Agadmator, onto his channel, and after Indian grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi appeared with him. Gujrathi has said Raina's suggestion prompted his own move from Twitch to YouTube. The channel has since hosted many leading chess figures, including former world champions Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, Magnus Carlsen and Judit Polgár. Chess commentators, including Anand, Gujrathi, Anish Giri and Tania Sachdev, have credited Raina with helping to popularise chess in India, saying his humour made the game appeal to a wider audience.

Raina plays on Chess.com under the handle "samayraina", where he is known as "Blunder Master". His rapid rating was recorded at 1621 in May 2026, and his highest recorded rapid rating was 1942 in August 2026.

On 5 May 2021, Raina won the Botez Bullet Invitational, a $10,000 tournament on Chess.com hosted by the Botez sisters, earning $4,000 as the only Indian streamer in the field. He said the prize money would go towards oxygen concentrators. In December 2025, he won Chess.com's SuperPogChamps tournament, beating Andrea Botez in the semi-final and Sardoche in the final, and donated the full $10,000 prize to Lidè Haiti, a charity supporting learning, health and well-being for girls in Haiti.

He has also appeared in the music videos for Seedhe Maut's "11K", KRSNA's "Sensitive" and Raftaar's "Baawe".

Comedians on Board

Raina also organised a series of online chess tournaments on his channel under the name Comedians on Board, bringing together comedians and other celebrities. Raina himself was runner-up in the second and third editions, and won the fourth and fifth.

Chess Super League

With ChessBase India and Nodwin Gaming, Raina organised the Chess Super League, an online chess league with six teams of six players each, drawn from leading international and Indian grandmasters, international masters and junior players. The event carried a prize pool of Rs 40 lakh and was streamed on his YouTube channel.

India's Got Latent

On 14 June 2024, Raina launched India's Got Latent, a comedy talent show on his YouTube channel. The format, inspired by Got Talent and Kill Tony, gives contestants around 90 seconds to perform an act, from singing and dancing to magic, comedy and unusual niche talents. Before performing, each contestant predicts their own score; if the judges' average matches that prediction, the contestant wins a prize drawn from that day's ticket sales. Raina hosts the show with co-host Balraj Singh Ghai, and the judging panel rotates between comedians and celebrity guests.

In January 2025, Raina launched an India's Got Latent app for iOS and Android, aiming to build it into a full streaming service. Within hours of launch, the app reached the top of the charts on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

On 19 June 2026, Netflix announced two new titles with Raina: a second season of India's Got Latent, streaming simultaneously on Netflix and YouTube, and a new stand-up special in development. The second season premiered on 20 June 2026, with its first episode featuring Alia Bhatt, Sharvari and Aashish Solanki, and new episodes released every two weeks. In October 2026, he filmed a special edition of the show in Jamnagar, branded "Jamnagar's Got Latent".

Cyber-awareness work

On 27 August 2026, Raina was felicitated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai for his contribution to the cyber-awareness short film "Digital Arrest" and the "1930 Maharashtra Cyber Anthem", produced by the Maharashtra Cyber Cell. At the event, he joked about his long association with the cyber cell, saying he had saved the helpline number 1930 on his phone because he often received calls from it.

Controversies — Abortion tweet (2022)

In 2022, after the United States Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights, Raina posted a joke about abortion on social media. The post was widely criticised, with some calling it misogynist, and Raina blamed the reaction on cancel culture.

Controversies — India's Got Latent remark and legal cases (2025-2026)

The show drew its sharpest criticism in February 2025, after guest Ranveer Allahbadia asked a contestant a hypothetical question about parental incest during an episode. On 10 February 2025, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Guwahati Police had registered a first information report against Raina, Allahbadia, Ashish Chanchlani, Jaspreet Singh and Apoorva Makhija for promoting obscenity and engaging in sexually explicit discussion. The case, registered by the Guwahati Crime Branch, cited provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Information Technology Act, the Cinematograph Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act. The National Human Rights Commission sought the video's removal, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis condemned the remark, and the issue was raised in Parliament. On 12 February 2025, Raina made all episodes of the show private on YouTube.

The episode also led to a separate case in the Supreme Court, after the Cure SMA Foundation of India complained about insensitive remarks on the show about the cost of treatment for spinal muscular atrophy and about a person living with the condition. In November 2025, the court directed Raina and four other comedians to organise at least two events a month to raise funds for the treatment of persons with disabilities and to invite disabled people to their programmes.

On 14 July 2026, the Supreme Court imposed a cost of Rs 3 lakh each on Raina, Vipul Goyal, Balraj Ghai, Sonali Thakkar and Nishant Tanwar, saying they had "taken the Court for a ride" and committed a "brazen violation" of their undertakings. The court had initially directed a cost of Rs 10 lakh each before reducing it. The Cure SMA Foundation's counsel told the court that Raina had neither contacted the foundation nor any person suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, as directed, and that a compliance affidavit said to have been filed was not on record. The comedians were ordered to deposit the amount within two weeks and file compliance affidavits within 15 days.

On 14 August 2026, the Supreme Court quashed the criminal cases against Raina, Allahbadia, Chanchlani and four others over the remarks about disabled persons. The court praised their efforts since, including a chess tournament for specially-abled players in Pune, further shows scheduled for the cause, Rs 12.5 crore raised from shows for the welfare of specially-abled people and Rs 9 lakh raised earlier. The court kept the larger regulatory question open for a separate case.

Comedians on Board

Profile Summary

Filmography - Television

Frequently Asked Questions

References

• LiveLaw
• Bar & Bench
• Moneycontrol

Identifiers

• IMDb IMDb ID
• ↗ Chess.com