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The Union authorities blocked 242 “illegal betting and gambling” sites connected Friday (January 16, 2026), an authoritative said. That brings the full specified sites blocked nether this category, the authoritative said, to 7,800. All existent wealth gaming and gambling alike has been outlawed by the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025.
That law, which banned each games wherever users could enactment wealth successful with a anticipation of winning (or losing) their deposits, came arsenic a surprise, and was pushed done Parliament successful a substance of days. Former manufacture executives and lawyers had agelong advocated against a full ban, arguing that offshore and amerciable betting and gambling platforms would capable the vacuum.
It is unclear to what grade amerciable betting sites person been operating and frequented by Indian users, but adjacent blimpish estimates by erstwhile representatives speaking anonymously peg the magnitude successful the hundreds of crores of rupees per month. Even erstwhile existent wealth gaming platforms were operating, industry-funded studies showed that amerciable platforms — drafting users with a deficiency of GST, but with practically nary oversight compared to above-board operators — were mushrooming.
Comment | The blurred lines betwixt gaming and gambling
While the authorities has blocked galore of these sites, with implicit 1,000 URLs targeted successful 2024 alone, dealing with evasive amerciable operators whitethorn crook retired to beryllium challenging, 1 2025 study by the argumentation consultancy Digital India Foundation said, owed to “URL switching,” wherever operators rapidly determination their sites to a antithetic domain name.
Leveraging alleged “mule” accounts belonging connected insubstantial to mean Indians, funds are rapidly siphoned retired of the country, wherever they are harder for authorities to recover.
