Report Finds Crypto a Driving Force in $100 billion Offshore India Sports Betting Market

A report by the Digital India Foundation has highlighted key regulatory challenges, and the size of the offshore market for online betting.

The report analyses Parimatch, 1xBet, Batery Bet, and crypto sportsbook Stake over three months. It shows that these four gambling platforms recorded 1.6 billion visits and suggests that the true scale of unregulated betting in the country is “significantly higher” than first anticipated.

Google Search trends between February 2021 and December 2024 show a significant increase in searches for platforms such as Dafabet, 1xBet, Parimatch, 4rabet and Khelo24Bet – specifically during the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket season.

The report suggests that deposits in unregulated entities from Indian consumers already exceed $100 billion annually and are expected to grow 30 percent each year.

Digital advertising is one of the key drivers in the initial growth and sustaining of these betting platforms. The Digital India Foundation found that social media platforms accounted for 42.8 million visits to the four sites in three months.

Organic search traffic drove 184 million visits, driven by high search rankings for specific keywords like “best IPL betting site.” Referral traffic brought in approximately 247.5 million visits, primarily from adult sites, gambling affiliates, and promotions on sports and video streaming platforms.

The report found that direct traffic was comfortably the biggest driver of visits, with just over 1 billion visits to the site directly. This was attributed to strong brand recognition and previous marketing success of crypto sites and other offshore operators. Despite having policies prohibiting gambling-related ads in India, the Digital India Foundation has suggested that major platforms like Facebook continue to host adverts without any repercussions for the operators.

Payment Systems Add to Regulatory Challenges

Each operator examined offers multiple payment options in India, including UPI transactions, cryptocurrencies, and international wallets like AstroPay.

Findings suggest that “mule channels” are estimated to move around $300 million in illicit funds monthly, and law enforcement can only recover approximately 10 percent of the amount. Fiat operators use multiple mule accounts to process payments, avoiding financial regulators’ detection.

Cryptocurrency provides anonymity; as such, payments through wallets are not traceable to specific people.

The growth of unregulated gambling is largely down to India’s weak regulatory environment. The report compares India to countries such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, and the United States and found that they have adopted far more comprehensive strategies.

Although India has nascent website blocking policies, other countries employ policies such as marketing restriction, payment blocking, and whitelist/blocklist systems and have also collaborated directly with social media platforms to address marketing and advertising issues.

Despite India being known for strict regulation, it has also become synonymous with absent enforcement. Findings suggest that as of 1 October 2023, no offshore gambling platforms (crypto or otherwise) had registered with the tax authorities, further highlighting the missed economic opportunity.

The Indian Government, reacting to the pro-crypto Donald Trump presidency, will review its cryptocurrency laws. Ajay Seth, Economic Affairs Secretary, suggested to Reuters that India did not want to get left behind in the ‘digital asset revolution.’

This follows shortly after a new tax of up to 70 percent on previously undisclosed crypto gains as part of the country’s income tax policy.