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21-07-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: India’s financial crime fighting agency has summoned executives of tech giants Google, opens new tab and Meta, opens new tab to its headquarters on Monday as it investigates accusations of money laundering on online betting apps, two government sources said.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating whether the platforms eased the way for promotion and wider reach of betting apps through advertisements, the first source said.
A date of July 21 has been set for the appearances at the agency’s headquarters in the capital, New Delhi, the source added.
A second government source accused Google and Meta of using their platforms to promote illegal activities, despite a government advisory against the advertisement of any form of betting.
The agency will investigate Google and Meta over the funds they received from betting apps, the second source added, as well as checking if they were advertising or promoting any other betting platforms.
Both sources sought anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media.
Google and Meta did not immediately respond to media’s requests for comment.
Betting and gambling pose “significant financial and socio-economic risks for consumers, especially youth and children,” India’s information and broadcasting ministry told television channels and digital media in an advisory, opens new tab in 2022. Promotion of offline or online betting and gambling through advertisements was not advised in the larger public interest, the ministry added.
Domestic news agency ANI first reported the news.
In October, 2022, in light of the significant financial and socio-economic risk for the consumers, especially youth and children, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting today issued two Advisories, one for private television channels and the other for digital news publishers and OTT platforms strongly advising them to refrain from showing advertisements of online betting sites and surrogate advertisements of such sites. The Ministry had earlier issued an Advisory on 13 June, 2022 advising newspapers, private TV channels and digital news publishers to refrain from publishing advertisements of online betting platforms.
It had come to the notice of the Government that several sports channels on television, as well as on OTT platforms, have recently been showing advertisements of offshore online betting platforms as well as their surrogate news websites. The Advisories were supplemented with evidences which contained direct and surrogate advertisements of offshore betting platforms such as Fairplay, PariMatch, Betway, Wolf 777, and 1xBet.
In the Advisories, the Ministry has informed that online offshore betting platforms are now using news websites as a surrogate product to advertise the betting platforms on digital media. In such cases, the Ministry has found that the logos of surrogate news websites bear striking resemblance to betting platforms. Moreover, the Ministry has stated that neither the betting platforms nor the news websites are registered under any legal authority in India. Such websites are promoting betting and gambling under the garb of news as surrogate advertising.
The Advisories issued by the Ministry stated that since betting and gambling is illegal in most parts of the country, advertisements of these betting platforms as well as their surrogates are also illegal. The Advisories relied upon the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 2019, Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995 and the IT Rules, 2021.
