In light of the significant financial and socio-economic risk for the consumers, especially youth and children, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Monday 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.
The ministry’s move after It came to its notice 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 evidence 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 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.
‘’Such advertisements are not in conformity with various related laws and have strongly advised TV channels as well as digital news publishers from broadcasting such betting platforms or their surrogate news websites, reminding TV channels that violation may invite penal action,’’ said the ministry. It has also advised online advertisement intermediaries to not target such advertisements towards Indian audiences.
The Ministry has mentioned that betting and gambling pose significant financial and socio-economic 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.
