The Ministry of I&B issued an advisory to publishers of news and current affairs content on digital media advising them to refrain from publishing advertisements of online betting platforms on online and social media. The online advertisement intermediaries were also advised not to target such advertisements towards the Indian audience.
https://twitter.com/MIB_India/status/1576926828547407872?s=20&t=Bz7FeN9x8K94Nef_v-6gAA
Similar directive was passed separately for Private Satellite TV channels too. The formal advisory was shared on Twitter by the Ministry’s official account.
https://twitter.com/MIB_India/status/1576928860490567680?s=20&t=5lfn1vX1pS1D7HlmpdZ1Jg
The Advisory had been issued for the reason that betting and gambling is prohibited in most parts of the country, and pose significant financial and socioeconomic risk for the consumers, especially youth and children. Accordingly, the promotion of offline or online betting/gambling through advertisements is not advised in larger public interest.
In this regard, the Ministry has observed that promotional content and advertisements of betting platforms are still visible on certain news and OTT platforms. It has also come to the notice that some online offshore betting platforms have started using news websites as a surrogate product to advertise betting platforms on digital media.
In respect of the advertisements of the surrogate news websites operated by the online betting platforms, it may be mentioned that the logos of the concerned news websites are strikingly similar to the betting platform. The concerned betting platforms and the corresponding news websites are also not registered with any legal authority under Indian laws.
Accordingly, the online offshore betting platforms appear to be promoting betting and gambling under the garb of news as surrogate advertising. In this regard, the Department of Consumer Affairs has also informed that online betting platforms have been advertising themselves as professional sports blogs, sports news websites, etc. while providing an indicative list of online betting platforms which are using news for surrogate advertising.
Contravention/violation of the above may invite penal action under the applicable laws.
