How offshore betting sites are laughing all the way to the bank

Representative image.

Of the six ‘items’ on the electronic display board near the elevators of a condominium in central Noida, three rather outdated news stories rotate in a carousel alongside a couple of catchy promotions of online betting sites that promise huge cash prizes.

These advertisements are endorsed by celebrities from sports and Bollywood, and tend to win relatively more attention than mundane news of a weakening Indian Rupee, India’s one-sided cricket wins, or Diwali offers. Complete with access details, these sites cleverly use various combination of desi words like ‘bhai’, and ‘book’, flaunt famous surnames such as ‘Ambani’ and ‘Adani’, while also displaying their ‘spiritual’ side by using the name of perhaps the most powerful deities in the Hindu pantheon, Mahadev. They have not even spared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, popularly known as ‘NaMo’.

At a time when the Indian online gaming business is facing serious challenges due to the lack of government regulations and guidelines, major taxation issues, and Google’s policy changes, offshore betting sites have been making roaring business in India. In the last two years, at least a dozen of companies such as Dafabet, Betway, Bet365, Parimatch, Fairplay, and 1xbet, have earned more from Indian punters than many of India’s top online gaming operators. It is estimated that the offshore gambling sites are making Indian online gaming industry poorer by at least $25-30 Billion!

The offshore betting business operates in the realm of unknown. Most of them are incorporated in places such as Malta, Curacao, Belize, Gibraltar, and Isle of Man, which have loose tax regulations, if any. Many of the owners of these sites are based out of India, and it is widely known that one of the most popular gambling sites in India is run by a duo of infamous fugitives evading Indian law. It is also alleged that recently this site, named after an Indian deity, organised a high-profile party in Dubai that was attended by several Bollywood celebrities.

While using Indian ‘dabba’ companies to run their business, the global gambling companies are using the media to promote their questionable businesses. They have targeted two areas — sports and entertainment — for their promotion. With deep pockets – it is estimated that the top six operators alone garner about Rs 5,500 crore of ‘deposits’ every month in India – they are able to woo the big broadcasters easily, and sweep the available advertisement inventory on TV and OTT platforms.

Since direct promotion of betting and gambling sites are not allowed by the law and the Government of India has recently sent strongly-worded advisories, these offshore companies have resorted to surrogate ways to promote their brands. They have opened ‘news’ websites, they have tied up with teams as sponsors where their logos appear on team jerseys, they have flooded top websites with clickable banners, and even partnered with industry bodies such as the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) to improve their networking and reach. When organisations such as the IAMAI, which states in its vision statement that it is working to promote an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, associate with offshore betting companies, it sends the wrong signals.

When an Indian industry body, whose founding members run the country’s leading fantasy cricket app, slams offshore betting sites, welcomes the government’s advisory to broadcasters to stop running ads of offshore companies, and yet flout its own charter by promoting gambling sites in its own OTT platform during a cricket series featuring India, it is nothing short of hypocrisy. When the same digital stream is run on India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan, it is either ignorance, or simply, adopting double-standards.

Government advisories on offshore betting sites have been treated with disdain. It is argued that the Public Gaming Act 1867 is outdated, and does not fit into the present scenario. The guidelines stated by the Advertisement Standards Council of India (ASCI) are only for the book, and hardly practised. The ASCI prescribes the code for self-regulation in advertising. Compliance with such code is voluntary with respect to online advertising, and not mandated by law. However, with respect to content on television, adherence to the ASCI code is mandatory under the Cable Television Act. It is another thing that many do not follow it.

The government appears to be serious in tackling offshore gambling sites since it is losing a lot of tax revenues. Before cracking on them, it needs to address far more pressing (and basic) issues. First among them is the need to decide what is legal and what isn’t. For now, many states are coming up with ordinances to stop online gaming that falls under the realm of gambling. But there is no stopping offshore players as they operate in this regulatory grey area, and are endorsed by celebrities. In the gaming world, ‘self-regulation’ is just fancy jargon.

Soumitra Bose is a senior sports journalist, and a research scholar. Twitter: @Soumitra65. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.