Bangladesh to shut portals running betting ads immediately

Dig Deeper

Related stories

2025/04/28: Bangladesh High Court orders government to ban online gambling ads 2025/05/06: Bangladesh High Court orders government report on online gambling 2025/10/15: Bangladesh accuses ESPN of breaching online gambling advertising laws 2025/09/01: Audit criticizes Massachusetts Gaming Commission over betting ads

The Backstory

A fast-moving escalation against online betting promotions

Bangladesh’s decision to shutter media portals that carry betting ads did not arise in a vacuum. It comes after months of mounting legal and political pressure to curb the promotion of online gambling across mainstream and social media. The country outlaws gambling, yet officials have warned that digital advertising has amplified access to offshore betting, complicating enforcement and raising public health concerns. As regulators coordinate with police, tax and intelligence bodies, the government is framing the crackdown as both a cyber-safety and financial compliance effort, signaling broader scrutiny of how digital publishers, advertisers and platforms monetize audiences inside Bangladesh.

The immediate closures target portals that authorities say continue to run “unsafe content” and gambling promotions despite repeated warnings. Officials have paired tougher rhetoric with new tools, citing web-crawling to trace ties between betting operators and mobile financial service accounts. The push aligns with a stepped-up regulatory cadence since spring: court directives, compliance deadlines and the threat of blocking high-traffic sites if they fail to remove betting-linked inventory. The message to publishers and intermediaries is clear: advertising that routes users to online betting products risks swift sanctions, not drawn-out notice-and-comment processes.

Court orders turned warnings into mandates

Judicial interventions have laid much of the groundwork for the present enforcement posture. In one case, the High Court ordered the government to ban online gambling ads and set up a seven-member committee spanning culture, home affairs, ICT and law enforcement to oversee the response. The bench questioned why officials had not already acted and raised whether continued inaction could be deemed illegal. The directive, prompted by a public interest petition, gave the committee 90 days to investigate and report back, effectively turning policy aspiration into a compliance timetable.

Separately, another High Court bench tightened oversight by demanding a status update on official actions. It ordered a progress report within 30 days from agencies including the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and the police, and asked why a 24/7 monitoring team should not be formed. The ruling followed a legal notice pressing authorities to close online gateways to gambling. Together, the orders transformed a diffuse debate into a series of deliverables that ministries and regulators must meet, with the courts positioned to test whether measures taken are commensurate with the scale of the problem.

Those deadlines help explain why enforcement has moved from advisories to takedowns. By linking agency performance to judicial scrutiny, the courts widened the accountability circle. That structure gives regulators cover to act quickly against violative content and offers judges a record to evaluate, setting up a feedback loop that can harden ad policies into durable practice.

From platform policing to cross-border pressure

As enforcement shifted from guidance to action, regulators expanded their scope from domestic publishers to international platforms with large Bangladeshi audiences. The National Cyber Security Agency issued a legal notice to ESPN Sports Media Group, alleging that ESPNcricinfo had served betting-linked ads and operated without proper registration and tax compliance. The notice, reported in local media, warned the site could be blocked if it did not remove prohibited content, disclose local ad operations and verify value-added tax obligations. The episode, detailed here: Bangladesh accuses ESPN of breaching online gambling advertising laws, shows authorities using the threat of access restrictions to force policy changes at global publishers.

The ESPNcricinfo warning also reveals how ad enforcement is converging with tax and consumer-protection agendas. By seeking documentation of ad sales and revenue flows, regulators are probing whether international media earn local income without meeting registration and tax rules. For advertisers and intermediaries, the implication is that content compliance alone may not suffice; commercial footprints will face review.

A digital cat-and-mouse complicates enforcement

Even as Bangladesh tightens the legal framework, officials acknowledge how fluid the online ad market can be. Betting promoters frequently rotate IP addresses, domain names and Android Package Kit downloads distributed through private messaging groups, making detection a moving target. That churn forces telecom operators, broadband providers and mobile financial service firms into a continuous blocking and reporting role. Regulators say automated crawlers are flagging links between gambling operators and thousands of mobile financial accounts, a signal that enforcement is widening beyond content moderation toward payments interdiction.

The approach mirrors strategies used in other illicit-content crackdowns: degrade discovery by cutting search and social reach, restrict payments to weaken monetization, and escalate blocks on noncompliant sites. The risk, officials note, is that whack-a-mole dynamics can push users toward ever more opaque channels. To counter that, authorities are drafting standard operating procedures to streamline takedowns across agencies, with an emphasis on speed and coordinated action.

Global scrutiny of betting ads is intensifying

Bangladesh’s campaign fits into a broader reassessment of online gambling advertising in mature and emerging markets. In Australia, federal leaders weighed a nationwide ban on sports betting ads after a parliamentary inquiry, even as lawmakers accepted tickets to sports events while the policy was under consideration. An analysis found that politicians received AU$245,000 in tickets between mid-2023 and early 2025. The optics fueled concerns about lobbying and “soft diplomacy,” and underscored how political calculus can slow policy shifts despite public health arguments.

In the United States, an audit of Massachusetts’ newly legal sports betting sector found compliance gaps in ad oversight. The state auditor criticized the Massachusetts Gaming Commission for not reviewing ads before they ran and identified instances where marketing reached underage or self-excluded individuals. Regulators responded by tightening controls and hiring an independent auditor to test operator compliance. The Massachusetts experience illustrates the operational challenges of proactive ad screening and the stakes if guardrails lag product launches.

These cases point to a common tension: lawmakers and regulators are racing to erect protections while commercial incentives, platform dynamics and political pressures pull in the opposite direction. For markets that prohibit gambling, like Bangladesh, the imperative is not just consumer safety but the maintenance of legal norms against a backdrop of borderless digital advertising.

Why the stakes are rising for publishers, telecom firms and users

For Bangladeshi media and global platforms that reach the country, the costs of noncompliance are climbing. Immediate shutdowns and blocks can erase audiences and revenue overnight. Telecom operators and payment providers face heightened expectations to detect and disrupt traffic and transactions linked to betting marketing, adding compliance and reputational risk. Advertisers and ad-tech intermediaries will likely see more stringent due diligence demands as authorities look upstream to funding and delivery mechanisms.

For users, curbs on gambling promotions may reduce exposure to risky offers, but could also push determined bettors into less transparent channels. That puts pressure on public messaging and treatment resources to address addiction risks beyond the advertising layer. As Bangladesh hardens its stance, court oversight, cross-border notices and coordination among telecom, financial and law-enforcement agencies will determine whether the policy shift meaningfully reduces the presence of betting ads or simply reshapes where they appear.