India Cracks Down on Influencers Who Promote “Illegal” Gambling

With India’s state of gambling regulation being a hot mess, a thriving black market has proliferated, mostly related to online casino operators, which are still unregulated in the country and enjoying a “grey area status”, and unlikely to be regulated on a federal level for many years to come.

Indian Ministry Wants to See Influencers Stopped from Promoting Gambling

However, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) is now shifting the onus on social media influencers, whom it believes are violating Indian law by promoting gambling websites on their accounts and to their followers.

YouTubers and Instagram accounts have faced legal pressure from the government and in court. The MIB has not sought to be outright vindictive, however, choosing to issue advisories warning to the influencers it believes to have been marketing their gambling products.

The cases brought up by the MIB concern unauthorized gambling websites, the ministry insists, that have no legal right to be offering their products locally.

The warnings are meant to catch up influencers to the fact that their activities are construed as illegal under Indian law in the ministry’s interpretation of the law, and would entail a response from officials, including potential financial penalties and imprisonment in the most extreme cases.

The MIB is not the only government institution to have taken issue with influencers pushing gambling products. The Tamil Nadu Online Gaming Authority has similarly used show-cause notices to influencers whom the watchdog believes to be promoting gambling platforms “illegally.”

The government has taken a further shot at the social media platforms themselves, arguing that they have a responsibility to ensure that they police and monitor illegal gambling content and remove it in those instances when it pertains to an infringement of country laws.

The government is similarly keen to see social media platforms do more to help consumers recognize illegal forms of gambling too and help guide the discussion around problem gambling and gambling addiction.

Influencers Fail to Meet Basic Standards for Responsibility

For the time being, though, most of the actionable efforts are against the people promoting these gambling websites. One other criticism shared by government officials and watchdogs is that influencers are interested in driving B2C results but not necessarily highlighting the risks associated with online gambling and its addictive nature, for example.

Although the laws are patchy at the beast as to where online gambling stands in the majority of the states in the country, watchdogs are responding similarly to the excessive promotion of offshore gambling sites in India – it has to stop.