India is witnessing an unprecedented surge in illegal online betting, with a staggering 1.6 billion visits to unauthorized gambling websites recorded in just three months. This explosive growth has raised serious concerns among regulators, especially as many of these platforms operate without licenses and evade local laws through offshore hosting and payment gateways. The lure of quick money and the anonymity of online platforms are drawing millions of users, including younger audiences, into a legal grey zone.

In contrast, platforms such as NoDepositFan within India are committed to promoting only legitimate and fully licensed operators, ensuring users can engage with trusted and regulated services. While this thriving industry shows no signs of dwindling, the challenge remains in curbing illegal operators while supporting ethical platforms that prioritize user safety and compliance.

The Digital India Foundation Report

The March 2025 report by the Digital India Foundation, Illegal Gambling and Betting Market in India: The Scale and Enablers, cracks the lid wide open on current illegal gambling online practices in India.

The newly published report is designed to help understand the full picture of current betting practices and what they might mean for the future. The report is designed to understand illegal operators in betting and gambling within the country, and what it can and does mean for fraud, oversight, and protecting the people of India.

The report has been actioned following 2023’s Parliamentary Standing Committee warnings about online gambling operations as a significant concern to the country - in terms of money laundering and funding bad actors. In this report, the true scale of illegal betting and gambling operations is uncovered.

The Findings: Illegal Online Gambling in India

The report’s investigations showed 1.6 billion visits to just four platforms over the course of three months. The subject of the investigation covers four of the biggest operators in the space: Parimatch, Stake, 1xBet, and Batery Bet.

With 1.6 billion visits, this means there were more visits to these websites across just three months - than the number of people living in India. Of course, the average gambler is returning to a site multiple times, not just visiting it once.

Each of these four operators is relatively well-known across India, and each of them operates multiple mirror websites, so simple address blocking cannot work to limit access to gamblers. A related finding within the report shows that three Parimatch mirror websites saw 266 million visits in the same period.

The report measured traffic from Google searches, social media click-throughs and referred website traffic through partners and advertising such as adult websites. Most of the traffic generated to the gambling operators was through typing in the website address directly: this accounted for 1.098 billion website visits. This last figure shows that patrons either know the web address directly or are return visitors.

A Difficult Problem to Tackle

‘Illegal Gambling and Betting Market in India: The Scale and Enablers’ shows that illegal betting and gambling operators are sophisticated in their nature. With multiple mirror websites, pervasive advertising across digital platforms and mediums, and a wide range of payment options, it can be very difficult to stamp out illegal operations. Even though social media advertising is not permitted, for example, it is not governed as strictly as it could be.

The report points to a multi-faceted strategy to help stop illegal operations that include IP blocking, tough advertising regulations, and payment blocking across regularly used channels. Of course, this can be difficult with new digital wallets emerging daily and the flourishing of cryptocurrencies worldwide.

More Regulation Can Be Worth It

It stands to reason that Indian regulators are annoyed with illegal online gambling operators. Unlike regulated gambling operators, there is no chance to tax these companies on their revenues, leading to big losses on potential earnings for the country. Considering the high taxation rate of 28% on bets taken for GST in online gambling operations successfully licensed in India, this is a lot of money that is at stake.

Those in the gambling industry would argue that such a steep tax is what keeps illegal operators from registering their businesses in India. Given a 28% tax rate, it could be difficult to turn large enough profits for a business to remain operational.

The issue won’t go away. Illegal gambling operations are pervasive worldwide. The only way to combat these scenarios is by convincing operators to go legitimate, plus stamping down on advertising across the internet, bouncing illegal gambling-related payments, and introducing tougher penalties.

India must act if they are to decrease the amount of online illegal gambling that’s happening every day, from within their borders. With a sports-mad nation at play, and plenty of illegal sports betting operators across the field, it might be a tricky problem to unwind and start to turn around.