ASCI revises opinion trading whitepaper after notice by Mobile Premier League

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The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has released a revised version of its whitepaper on the contentious opinion trading space, nearly a month after the parent company of skill-gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League (MPL) sent a legal notice to the advertising watchdog.

In the new whitepaper, released on June 17, ASCI said it has omitted references to specific entities to 'maintain focus on the broader subject matter', and also retracted earlier claims that courts had banned opinion trading in India, clarifying instead that legal proceedings are still underway.

"The Indian courts are currently examining the legal status of opinion trading in India. Legal proceedings have been filed before the Supreme Court of India as well as before several High Courts and the issue is pending consideration," the whitepaper said.

Opinion trading, also known as prediction markets, allows people to place bids on outcomes of future events. Users can make yes-or-no predictions through poll-based questions covering real-world events in sports, entertainment, current affairs, technology, the economy, and finance, and receive cash rewards for accurate predictions.

That said, there is a lack of clarity on the legal status of opinion trading platforms in India, which currently operate in an uncertain regulatory environment, and are not recognised as financial instruments.

While these platforms could potentially fall under the purview of some state gambling laws, India currently lacks specific rules to regulate them. This has also led to an ambiguity around regulations governing their advertising, ASCI added. The Indian government is yet to implement a central legal framework to regulate the real-money gaming (RMG) sector.

ASCI added that different countries have defined and regulated opinion trading, as per its survey of global advertising self-regulators. Some countries treat opinion trading as a form of gambling, and therefore require compliance with relevant regulations, while others categorise it as a form of financial instrument, to regulate it under commodity or financial trading laws.

In April, market regulator Sebi issued an advisory cautioning investors against engaging with opinion trading platforms, warning that such entities fall outside the ambit of its regulatory oversight and offer no investor protection under the securities law framework.

"Whether Opinion Trading is to be considered as a permitted/ recognised financial instrument or defined as games of skill or as games of chance is crucial at this juncture, with growing advertising and the potential consumer harm it can cause without adequate warnings and disclaimers. Clarity on this is essential to evaluate how advertising regulations apply to such advertisements," the ASCI whitepaper said.

ASCI also said that it now plans to escalate only those ads to the regulators that do not comply with the watchdog’s RMG guidelines, in order to decide on their legality, instead of flagging all opinion trading ads.

Moneycontrol have reached out to ASCI for a comment and will update once we hear back.

MPL’s Legal Notice

In May, MPL, which hosts opinion trading platform MPL Opinio, sent a legal notice to ASCI seeking withdrawal of its whitepaper - originally published in May 2025 - along with Rs 50 crore in damages for alleged loss of reputation and goodwill. The Bengaluru-based company claimed that the whitepaper relied on tampered screenshots of its advertisements to support ASCI's 'biased and unsubstantiated findings'.

It alleged that ASCI had deliberately edited relevant disclaimers from its original advertisements to support a 'baseless conclusion' that opinion trading involves an 'element of risk' and 'chances of financial losses'.

The notice also claimed that a screenshot from an educational YouTube video on its channel was selectively edited and taken out of context to imply an "element of risk... and chances of financial losses."

MPL further alleged that ASCI does not have the 'technical acumen or mandate' to publish such a whitepaper, and it has never previously questioned the nature of any product or service through a whitepaper.

Legal Challenges

These developments come amid broader concerns over the legality of opinion trading platforms that has mushroomed over the past couple of years. According to industry estimates, the sector has over 5 crore users and is generating an annual transaction volume of Rs 50,000 crore.

The companies in the sector are projected to reach over Rs 1,000 crore in revenue during the current financial year, after witnessing significant traction during the recently concluded IPL season.

That said, multiple public interest litigations (PIL) have been filed across various state High Courts, including Bombay High Court, Chhattisgarh High Court, and Gujarat High Court challenging the legality of these platforms.

The Supreme Court recently stayed the proceedings in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh High Courts, following a plea from opinion trading platform Probo to transfer all PILs to the Bombay High Court. The apex court is set to hear the matter again in July.

Meanwhile, opinion trading platforms have suspended operations in states like Chhattisgarh, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu.

In India, real-money games are generally classified as games of skill or games of chance. Games of chance are those where the winner is predominantly determined by luck and are considered gambling, while games of skill are those where the outcome is primarily determined by the player's skill and strategy.

Only games of skill are considered legal in India and fall under the purview of the union government, while gambling is a state subject in the country.

Opinion trading platforms claim they are skill-based gaming platforms since there is an element of skill that goes into winning money on these platforms. However, some industry experts argue that success on these platforms is largely dependent on luck and involves no skill, due to which they must be classified as games of chance.