Illegal Online Gambling Threatens Minors, Youth: CUTS Report Warns

The fast-growing illegal online-gambling and betting and gambling platform market in India poses a significant threat to vulnerable groups like minors and young adults, according to a report by CUTS International, a public policy think tank focused on consumer sovereignty. The report estimates that annual deposits are nearing USD 100 billion in these illegal platforms. The report analyses various dimensions of the problem to show that illegal online gambling is posing serious concerns for consumer protection, financial integrity, and national security.

The extent of the problem can be gauged from the report’s analysis – over 5.4 billion visits to the top 15 illegal gambling platforms across 40 of their mirror sites took place between April 2024 and March 2025. Top platforms such as 1xBet, Parimatch, Stake, Fairplay, and BateryBet consistently registered high traffic volumes and broad user reach. Traffic share for Parimatch for the month of March 2025 even outranked widely used platforms such as amazon.in, wikipedia.org, google.co.in, x.com, hotstar.com, flipkart.com, linkedin.com, quora.com, and reddit.com.

Pradeep Mehta, Founder and Secretary General, CUTS, on the release of the report, said, “Illegal gambling operators are systematically exploiting India’s advertising and payment infrastructure, siphoning off crores of rupees from outside the country. This presents a major national security threat and also exposes Indian consumers to serious harm.”

“This report’s policy gap assessment reveals a disturbing reality that while many jurisdictions around the world are introducing strict penalties on illegal gambling and building enforcement partnerships with major tech platforms, India continues to lack basic safeguards. Without urgent regulatory action, these platforms will keep targeting unsuspecting and vulnerable consumers. We must act swiftly to protect Indian users and restore integrity to our digital ecosystem,” Mehta added.

The report has highlighted that the appeal of illegal platforms lies in their accessibility and in the immersive and high-risk experiences they engineer. Illegal platforms such as Stake and 1xBet deploy sophisticated psychological design techniques and often facilitate higher-risk betting, which intensifies the excitement and thrill. Such high-stakes environments are particularly attractive to sensation-seeking youth and those with impulsive tendencies, significantly increasing their risk of developing gambling-related harm.

Illegal gambling platforms often bypass basic safeguards like Know Your Customer (KYC) and age verification, giving minors unregulated and unrestricted access to gambling content. This not only exposes them to harmful material but also encourages illegal behaviour at a young age. Some offshore operators, such as Parimatch, use tactics like cash-on-delivery payments, making it easier for minors — who may lack digital payment access — to gamble repeatedly without parental or legal oversight.

How are huge volumes of traffic generated for illegal gambling and betting platforms?

A critical driving factor behind the growth and sustainability of illegal gambling platforms in India is their aggressive user acquisition, engagement, and retention strategies. They employ a sophisticated ecosystem of tools and tactics designed to attract new users and to keep them actively engaged. Over 66 per cent of total traffic, amounting to more than 3.5 billion visits (between April 2024 and March 2025), are through direct traffic, meaning users are manually entering URLs, using bookmarks, or copying links from private channels. This means that there is an illusion of trustworthiness, where users perceive these illegal platforms as established and trusted brands.

A significant portion of direct traffic is also driven by mass media advertising, such as television commercials, outdoor advertising and billboard campaigns, celebrity endorsements, etc. Another critical discovery channel is search engines, particularly Google. Search traffic contributes more than 650 million visits, meaning that the illegal gambling platforms are successfully indexed and ranked high in search results, aided by aggressive SEO tactics and inadequate enforcement by search engines.

Further, illegal gambling operators continue to facilitate the movement of funds by employing rapidly evolving tactics and exploiting loopholes and vulnerabilities in India’s payment infrastructure. Such tactics include extensive use of the United Payments Interface (UPI) system, mule accounts, and mobile APKs. These cybercriminals have also developed sophisticated apps like XHelper, designed to coordinate vast money mule networks and sustain the illegal gambling ecosystem operating beneath the surface of India’s digital economy.

Interventions and Recommendations

The report has also highlighted the efforts of the government in curbing the menace of illegal betting sites. The Ministry of Finance on March 22, 2025, revealed intensified enforcement against offshore online entities, with nearly 700 under investigation. So far, 357 illegal or non-compliant websites/URLs have been blocked and almost 2,000 bank accounts, apart from other robust initiatives.

However, the report has called for additional efforts to make such measures more effective. The report uniquely includes a gap assessment, benchmarking India’s regulatory framework against international best practices across legislation, advertising, payments, website blocking, and cross-border collaboration. It finds that since India lacks a central regulator, there is no formal enforcement for illegal gambling advertisements, no payment-blocking protocols, and no systematic domain-monitoring infrastructure specifically for illegal gambling. It further argues that enforcement is largely manual and reactive, while consumer protection remains minimal.

The report has provided recommendations, drawn from international best practices, such as establishing a comprehensive national framework to combat illegal online gambling, one that ensures clear accountability across payments, advertising, digital platforms, and financial intermediaries. A high-level inter-ministerial task force should lead the development of this national framework. Another recommendation is to strengthen partnerships with big tech companies to curb the visibility and promotion of illegal gambling. Public awareness campaigns and commissioning targeted behavioural studies to examine why users are drawn to illegal gambling platforms despite known legal and financial risks were some of the other recommendations.