Offshore gambling brands are under fire for operating illegally within India. A new report points out that without harsher regulation, these sites could pose a threat to the vulnerable.
India’s online gaming population is nearly 450 million people strong, ranging from mobile gaming to gambling. However, findings from the Digital India Foundation (DIF) show that four illegal gambling operators account for 1.6 billion visits in just three months.
Some of these websites might sound familiar, as the report names Stake, 1xBet, BateryBet, and Parimatch as the leading offenders. DIF claims that the Indian government and authority response is “fragmented”, and that current approaches are “not enough”.
Big tech a key player in rise of illegal gambling
DIF also accuses “Big Tech platforms”, like Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, of profiting from “illegal gambling promotions”. Stake is a primary example, with underhanded techniques to advertise itself across apps like Instagram.
It was recently accused of allowing a top partner, rapper Drake, to allow for an undisclosed ad in the viral drone spying video. In the video, a laptop can be seen with Stake’s website open. Stake logos also appear in reposted viral videos on various accounts across the platform.
Someone flew a drone to Drake’s penthouse in Sydney, Australia and caught him gambling 😭 pic.twitter.com/1M5xKpmJx9
— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) February 18, 2025
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, uses advertising as a core part of its revenue. Despite efforts by watchdogs worldwide, advertisements still persist for gambling platforms that might not be legal in the country they’re being seen in.
India has strict gambling rules, and companies skirting these are trying to hit what could be an untapped market. Despite heavy enforcement around in-person gambling, where it’s legal in just two areas of the country, traffic to these websites continues to grow.
While part of this is blamed on social media, illegal gambling site visits only account for a reported 42.8 million clicks. Other areas of the web that host adverts, like adult websites, made up 247.5 million. Nearly quadrupling this, 1.1 billion visits simply came from searching through URLs.
