Offshore betting ads surge in India despite gaming law

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The Backstory

India’s ban shifted the market, but not demand

India’s latest advertising data underscores a central problem for regulators: The country has moved aggressively to ban online betting, but offshore operators have continued to find Indian users through social media, influencers and domain switching. The surge in offshore betting promotions after the 2025 gaming law suggests the legislation changed the competitive landscape faster than it reduced consumer demand.

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act was designed as a sweeping intervention in one of the world’s largest digital gaming markets. Parliament passed the law after government officials said about 450 million people were losing a combined $2.3 billion to gambling each year. The measure banned most online real-money gaming, including card games, poker and fantasy sports, while carving out space for esports and educational games. Operators, promoters and financiers can face prison terms of up to five years under the framework, according to an earlier report on how India’s online gaming law banned most igaming platforms.

That prohibition created immediate pressure on domestic companies that had previously advertised to Indian users in the open. Many local real-money gaming businesses cut back or stopped marketing after the law took effect. Offshore brands, by contrast, appear to have treated the retreat by regulated or locally visible operators as an opening. The Advertising Standards Council of India’s findings point to a market in which enforcement risk is higher, but the digital tools available to unauthorized operators remain cheap, fast and hard to exhaust.

URL blocks have not stopped offshore traffic

The advertising surge follows months of evidence that website blocking alone has struggled to keep Indian users away from offshore betting brands. India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has blocked thousands of gambling and betting links, but mirror sites and alternate domains continue to draw significant traffic. Earlier reporting found the government had blocked more than 7,800 platforms, including 242 links in a recent enforcement round, yet restricted sites were still receiving hundreds of thousands of monthly visits from India.

Data cited in a report on India’s enforcement challenges showed mirrored versions of 1xbet and Parimatch drawing 228,000 and 300,000 monthly visitors from India, respectively, between October and December. Stake, one of the largest global betting brands, recorded 234.3 million visits worldwide in the quarter, with India accounting for 13.5% of traffic, second only to Canada. Those figures illustrated why regulators view offshore betting not only as an advertising-compliance issue, but as a broader consumer-protection and payments challenge. Read more on how India has struggled to curb offshore betting sites despite mass blocking.

The same report cited a survey by Cuts International showing that use of offshore platforms rose from 68.3% before the ban to 82% afterward. Daily engagement also increased sharply, with 42% of surveyed users visiting offshore platforms daily after the ban, compared with 3.4% before it. The share of users gambling for more than two hours at a time also rose. Those findings suggest prohibition may have pushed some consumers away from more visible domestic operators and toward offshore sites that are less accountable to Indian authorities.

Influencers and affiliates filled the enforcement gap

The latest complaints data points to how offshore operators adapted. Rather than relying only on direct brand advertising, they used influencers, affiliate marketers, messaging apps and community pages. Some operators deployed more than 60 domains, reappearing through new accounts and brand variations after enforcement actions. That approach makes the advertising market more fragmented and harder to police than a conventional campaign run by a licensed company through a single media buyer.

Influencer marketing is particularly difficult for regulators because it blends entertainment, betting tips and personal recommendations. The council found hundreds of influencers promoting offshore betting content in 2025, with some accounts devoted entirely to gambling-related promotions. This creates a practical enforcement problem: A takedown of one domain or page may not affect the promoter network that continues to funnel users to the next address.

Google’s decision to ban rummy and fantasy sports advertisements across its advertising network for campaigns aimed at Indian audiences showed how major platforms have responded to the legal change. But the advertising data indicates that promotions have migrated to less centralized channels and to content formats that can be harder to identify automatically. Sponsored sports betting posts, local-language betting tips and instructional content can reach users before platforms or regulators classify them as gambling promotion.

Prediction markets exposed the same weaknesses

India’s enforcement concerns have extended beyond traditional sportsbook and casino brands. Prediction market operators Kalshi and Polymarket continued to allow users in India to register and trade despite ministry warnings that access to such platforms was prohibited. Bloomberg reported that the ministry referred to “illegal and blocked prediction market and online betting platforms” and named Polymarket among similar sites. The notice was directed partly at virtual private network providers, which officials said were being used to bypass restrictions.

The episode showed that India’s online betting rules are colliding with a wider set of products that market themselves as financial, political or event-based trading platforms rather than gambling sites. In a separate report on how Kalshi and Polymarket remained accessible in India despite the ban, both companies indicated they were evaluating compliance obligations. The dispute highlighted the difficulty of enforcing domestic prohibitions against platforms that operate globally and may not have a large physical presence in the country.

VPN use adds another layer of complexity. If users can bypass blocked domains through privacy tools, regulators must pressure intermediaries as well as gambling operators. But that approach can raise technical, legal and civil-liberties questions, especially when the same tools are used for legitimate business and personal security purposes. It also risks turning enforcement into a constant cycle of notices, blocks and workarounds.

Asia’s regulators face a shared platform problem

India is not alone in confronting the mismatch between national gambling bans and borderless digital advertising. Japan has also moved to strengthen restrictions on illegal online gambling, including advertising on social media and YouTube. A revised law that took effect Sept. 25 targets online casinos and celebrity endorsements, following a National Police Agency survey that estimated about 3.4 million Japanese residents had gambled online. The measure came after indictments involving entertainers and public concern over offshore gambling volumes. More detail is available in this report on Japan’s law targeting online casinos and celebrity endorsements.

Indonesia offers another example of the same enforcement challenge. Gambling is banned, yet promoters have used disguised ads on Meta platforms to steer users to betting sites. AFP identified promotions that appeared to discuss video games or health treatments but redirected users to gambling operators. Indonesian authorities have taken down more than 5.7 million gambling-related posts over eight years and arrested at least 85 influencers, according to a report on how igaming ads continued to target Indonesian Meta users despite a ban.

These cases show why India’s advertising surge matters beyond one annual complaints report. Offshore gambling operators are exploiting the same structural weaknesses across the region: rapid account creation, affiliate networks, encrypted or semi-private messaging channels, influencer endorsements and mirror domains. National laws can raise penalties and clarify what is prohibited, but the effectiveness of those laws depends on cooperation from platforms, payment providers, internet service providers and advertisers.

The stakes are moving from prohibition to control

India’s next challenge is whether it can convert a broad legal ban into a practical enforcement system. Blocking domains can disrupt access, but the traffic and advertising data suggest it is not enough on its own. Payment controls, faster takedown processes, real-time monitoring and clearer responsibility for platforms may become central to the government’s strategy if offshore operators continue to expand their reach.

The risk for policymakers is that a ban aimed at reducing addiction, financial losses and social harm may leave users exposed to less transparent operators. Domestic companies can be investigated, taxed, licensed or penalized. Offshore sites using rotating domains and informal promoter networks are harder to supervise. That distinction is now at the core of India’s igaming debate: The law may have reduced lawful advertising by local companies, but it has not eliminated the audience that offshore operators are competing to capture.

The latest surge in betting ads therefore marks a test of enforcement capacity, not just advertising standards. If India cannot contain the promotional channels that feed offshore sites, the practical effect of the gaming law could be to push activity further outside the regulated economy. That outcome would complicate consumer protection, weaken oversight of payments and leave digital platforms as the main battleground in one of Asia’s largest online gambling markets.