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The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, was passed with the nonsubjective to “protect individuals, particularly younker and susceptible populations, from the adverse social, economic, intelligence and privacy-related impacts” of online games involving money. As increasing grounds of their interaction emerges, it is becoming progressively wide that the Act is proving counterproductive. Early studies suggest that the usage of offshore online betting and gambling platforms has risen since the ban. Following the implementation of the PROG Act successful October 2025, users rapidly shifted from regulated home websites to amerciable offshore platforms.
Rise successful offshore level use
An adjacent much worrying effect is that these platforms not lone circumvent home laws but whitethorn besides go channels for wealth laundering and panic financing. Several reports and surveys conducted aft the prohibition suggest that offshore level usage has risen sharply. A survey by CUTS International recovered a important summation successful offshore information aft the implementation of the PROG Act — from 68.3% to 82% successful Delhi NCR, 67.8% to 83% successful Tamil Nadu, and 66.7% to 91.7% successful Maharashtra.
In Tamil Nadu, 67.8% of users reported utilizing offshore platforms earlier the ban, often alongside home real-money gaming platforms. After the ban, this roseate to 83%, involving the usage of offshore platforms, marking an summation of 15.2 percent points. This summation reflects a nett behavioural displacement of 15.2% toward offshore platforms, driven by a larger fig of respondents starting offshore usage aft implementation of the PROG Act than those discontinuing it.
This is not a caller phenomenon. Across industries, paternalistic bans seldom alteration user behaviour; they simply propulsion users toward underground and much volatile channels. Products which are not carnal successful quality look an adjacent deeper challenge, arsenic users tin rapidly displacement done VPNs and backstage links, making effectual regularisation and user extortion acold much difficult.
A lawsuit for beardown regulation
In the precocious concluded Budget parliamentary session, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology reported to the Lok Sabha that the Centre had blocked 8,376 URLs to combat the fiscal irregularities and cybercrime havoc being caused by amerciable offshore betting networks. Despite this, media reports proceed to allude to suicides linked to amerciable online betting traps adjacent aft the ban. It is truthful important to recognise the standard of the occupation and reconsider whether beardown regularisation whitethorn beryllium much effectual than an outright ban.
Illegal operators usage technologically precocious evasion tactics, including virtual backstage networks (VPN), proxy servers and encrypted platforms specified arsenic WhatsApp and Telegram, to guarantee seamless entree and transactions. By the clip authorities artifact 1 domain, users are often shifted to reflector sites with small disruption. The wide usage of VPNs besides masks idiosyncratic locations, weakening geographic restrictions.
When users displacement to offshore platforms, home authorities look important limitations successful ensuring user extortion and grievance redress. The casual accessibility of offshore online gambling platforms to Indian users is truthful a superior nationalist concern.
A caller inter-State online gambling and fraud racket that came to airy successful my constituency successful Tamil Nadu — Sivaganga — successful February this twelvemonth progressive a fraudulent “Old Coin Purchase Task” promoted connected Telegram, successful which the accused lured victims into investing wealth successful fake old-coin bidding schemes by promising precocious returns. They besides procured “mule accounts” by persuading villagers successful Sivaganga, Paramakudi and Kalayarkovil to unfastened slope accounts successful speech for tiny payments, which were past utilized to divert the proceeds of the crime.
Examples from overseas
Looking astatine different jurisdictions offers utile perspectives connected responding to the emergence of offshore platforms. The United Arab Emirates, contempt its long-standing prohibition, moved successful 2023 to found a tightly controlled national licensing model with strict compliance requirements, deposit limits and harm-prevention safeguards, partially to code the risks posed by unregulated offshore activity. Sri Lanka is present moving successful a akin direction, with a centralised Gambling Regulatory Authority expected to go operational by June 2026 to consolidate oversight and bring offshore online enactment wrong a wide home framework.
The emerging acquisition is that the existent argumentation prime is seldom betwixt permitting and banning. It is betwixt creating a regulated home model with accountability and user safeguards, oregon allowing the abstraction to beryllium dominated by offshore operators beyond home oversight. Addressing this menace requires sustained coordination betwixt the Centre and State governments. As the grounds suggests, a broad prohibition is improbable to enactment successful the agelong run. Instead, policymakers should reconsider and trial a regulated model wrong a controlled environment.
This would alteration policymakers to amended recognize and code the challenges posed by offshore operators, portion besides generating taxation gross from a regulated ecosystem. These revenues could past beryllium reinvested successful strengthening offshore monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, arsenic good arsenic backing player-awareness campaigns — an attack adopted successfully successful respective occidental countries.
Karti P. Chidambaram is Member of Parliament, Congress party, (Sivaganga), Tamil Nadu
