Top ‘prohibited online betting platforms’ in India see over 5.8 B sees in just 12 months: Record

Unlawful online betting in India gets on the rise, with an estimated 5.8 billion check outs to the top 15 systems and their mirror sites between April 2025 and March 2025, as operators benefit from gaps in regulation and skillfully avoid the laws which are in area.

According to an evaluation by CUTS International, the billions in check outs are simply those which can be tracked and are linked to the top 15 prohibited gaming systems and 40 of their mirror sites. These consist of 1xBet, Parimatch, Risk, Fairplay and BaterBet.

One shocking fact is that web traffic share for Parimatch ‘even outranked extensively utilized systems such as amazon.in, Wikipedia.org, google.co.in, x.com linkedin.com, quora.com, and reddit.com’.

In a position of one of the most prominent domains in India, from March 2025, pari-matchin. com placed 8th – behind Google (17.29 percent), Youtube (5.65 percent), Instagram (1.84 percent), WhatsApp (1.41 percent), Facebook (1.35 percent), XHamster43.desi (1.31 percent) and ChatGPT (1.08 percent) – with a web traffic share of 1.06 percent.by link 1xbet slot myanmar website

The findings detailed in ‘Fixing the Odds: A Plan Blueprint for Curbing Illegal Online Gaming in India’ highlight not only the market scale, yet also just how users are driven to illegal gaming platforms in India, exactly how they acquire users, payment systems that promote them and the governing gaps and obstacles that exist.

Acquiring individuals

Direct traffic has shown to be the largest resource of individual interaction for illegal on the internet gaming in India, with some 3.57 billion check outs (or 66 percent of complete web traffic) registered throughout the April 2025-March 2025 period. This includes users manually going into URLs, making use of book marks or duplicating web links from exclusive networks.

The success of this is based upon ‘an illusion of credibility’, ‘unsolicited marketing techniques’, ‘exclusive network’ circulation (such as with WhatsApp or Telegram), electronic media advertising and marketing (consisting of TV and billboard adverts), celeb recommendations and word-of mouth referrals.

Look traffic generated some 652.2 million visits, with Google having 97 percent market share in this regard. This triggers problems over the fact that unlawful gaming systems ‘are efficiently indexed and rated high in search engine result, helped by hostile SEO methods and weak enforcement by online search engine’.

Referral website traffic, on the other hand, brought in some 810.43 million sees – consisting of affiliates, web links, direct media acquiring or information coverage traffic. 1xBet was seen to have the biggest dependence of the 15 operators, obtaining 22.37 percent of its website traffic from the network.

Social media contributed 177.61 million visits, ‘although the real quantity could be substantially higher due to untracked in-app mobile redirection’. Systems like YouTube, Reddit, Instagram and Facebook, X and WhatsApp were highlighted. Yet enforcement of this is baffled as ‘the social networks network shows a mix of peer-driven discovery and algorithmic promo and boosting, posing a complex enforcement difficulty’.

Completely, illegal gaming platforms ‘cultivate direct connections with individuals, enhance their search engine existence, deploy various mirror sites to remain obtainable, and utilize associates and social media to keep new customers coming Merely obstructing one link or ad network has restricted impact when operators can move domains and take advantage of a ready target market that actively seeks them out’.

Other methods, such as surrogate advertising and marketing – making use of spin-off entities that ‘resemble the branding, logos and names of prominent prohibited gaming systems’, making use of brand ambassadors and physical marketing – billboards and ads, are additionally showing highly effective in reaching bent on a target market that authorities would certainly really hope is not urged to wager illegally.

Hindrances

Among the key reasons for individuals selecting to gamble on prohibited gambling platforms in India is the high tax on deposits – 28 percent – which ‘substantially minimize the value individuals obtain’, creating user to ‘seek illegal systems to prevent such prices and redirect the financial savings into financially rewarding economic rewards, therefore increasing their appeal’.

This is paired with the ‘immersive and risky experiences’ that illegal systems supply.

The report suggests that ‘platforms such as Stake and 1xBet integrate psychological layout techniques – such as variable reward systems, ‘near-miss results’, and gamified alerts – that more manipulate cognitive biases and advertise compulsive engagement’.

This is amplified by ‘higher-risk wagering’ assisted in by these systems, ‘which magnifies exhilaration and excitement’.

This raises the threat of ‘elevated degrees of anxiousness, anxiety, and emotional instability’, especially in the absence of customer defense devices and harm-reduction devices.

Settlements

One way that regulators can pursue these illegal platforms is by targeting settlement systems.

The record determines the United Payments Interface (UPI) system as the ‘primary network for handling down payments on illegal gaming platforms. In October of 2025, the country’s Ministry of Home Matters released an advising warning about ‘prohibited digital settlement gateways’, which the record notes are ‘relying upon mule or leased accounts’ and are ‘used as a service for accumulating deposits on unlawful platforms, consisting of betting and phony financial investment rip-offs’. Mule accounts ‘are usually sourced with systems like Telegram and Facebook and are remotely managed from abroad’.

‘There is no indication that these procedures have declined. As a matter of fact the large quantity of monetary activity recommends that current enforcement initiatives versus these organizations have actually been mainly inadequate’.

Digital purses – such as Astropay, Neteller and Skrill, and cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Tether, Ethereum etc, have likewise shown very efficient to circumvent laws and also ‘bypass the Indian financial system totally’.

Current structure

‘The existing Indian regulatory structure on gambling, wagering and video games of skill is identified by a disjointed yet gradually advancing governing landscape that reflects the nation’s colonial lawful heritage alongside modern-day electronic imperatives’.

The key lawful instrument in position is the Public Betting Act of 1867, ‘a law that was conceived long before the introduction of the internet’.

The record highlights 10 other laws, standards or advisories that regulate betting tasks in the country – both on-line and land-based (with legal gambling establishment betting limited to Goa and Sikkim, neither of which ‘have actually approved licensing applications from on-line gambling establishments’).

Referrals

The report breaks down feasible actions right into five bottom lines:

• Strengthening monetary oversight: ‘codifying repayment stopping in legislation relating to unlawful drivers’ and ‘launching dedicated, extensive research to far better map susceptabilities and notify targeted interventions’
• Improving blocking procedures: making use of ‘advanced electronic enforcement technologies’ such as artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence to ‘recognize and pre-emptively block unapproved online platforms’
• Reinforcing partnerships with Big Technology: establishing ‘institutional collaborations with significant technology intermediaries – social media, online search engine, and advertisement networks – to curb the exposure and promotion of unlawful gambling’
• Enhancing consumer protection: utilizing public awareness projects that ‘plainly communicate the personal and social damages of unlawful gaming
• Leveraging behavior understandings and public understanding: job to ‘understand the behavior vehicle drivers and customer motivations that maintain demand’

The record itself does not defame betting itself. Still, it increases solid worries regarding a substantial absence of regulations and the sophisticated methods that prohibited online drivers can utilize to target the Indian customer, advising quick renovation to prevent potential injury.