India’s federal or the Central Government on Monday issued advisories to news websites, OTT platforms and private satellite channels asking them to refrain from carrying advertisements of offshore betting sites.

 “…the private satellite television channels are strongly advised to refrain (from) advertisements of online offshore betting platforms and/or their surrogate news websites or any such product/service depicting these platforms in a surrogate manner,” the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting advisory said.

It also warned private satellite television channels of penal action under applicable laws for violation of the advisory.

“It has now come to the notice of this Ministry that some online offshore betting platforms have started using news websites as a surrogate product to advertise their betting platforms on TV channels. Exemplars of such surrogate advertising on TV channels are enclosed,” the advisory further stated.

Even as top MIB officials were speaking at a regulator TRAI-organised seminar on ‘Emerging Trends in Broadcasting’ in the first half of Monday at the India Mobile Congress 2022, the government advisory pointed out in accordance with the Advertising Code under Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995, advertisements of betting platforms, being an illegal activity, cannot be shown on TV channels.

“Betting and gambling is an illegal activity in most parts of India. In accordance with the Paragraph 9 of the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements 2022 under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, it has been observed that since betting and gambling is illegal, advertisements of online offshore betting and gambling platforms are also illegal. 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,” the advisory explained.

“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,” the government note detailed.

In a separate advisory to publishers of news and current affairs content on digital media and OTT platforms, the ministry issued a similar directive and asked them not to target such advertisements towards the Indian audience.