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During the one-day leg of the India - Australia series, @SonyLIV aired two ads, both of them international betting companies. Betway and Dafabet. 1/n
I found the ads to be strange. Well, because, online sports betting is not legal in the country apart from Sikkim. So why even advertise in a market where the products/services that are being advertised cannot be used.
A quick google search revealed something completely different. Both dafabet and betway were thriving. They even had offers on the homepage enticing new Indian customers.
More searches followed. Down a rabbit hole of legalese and court cases and PILs, found out about one plea put forward by two people in late 2019. The plea asked the Delhi High Court to ban sport betting websites, including these two.
The result of that case was thus: the Delhi HC passed it on the Centre. The Centre said they did not have the legislative competence to pass a blanket ban (sports betting in India is a state subject).
The person part of the initial PIL, not satisfied by the initial response from the Centre, has put forth another PIL, again asking the Court to ban these websites. The Court have again passed it to the Centre, asking MEITY et. al. what is to be done (next hearing on Jan 29)
Dug through dafa and betway more. It's clear both of them have scores of users in India. It's likely a FEMA violation, when I spoke about this to one lawyer.
Dafa, on their website, even has ways to operate the site using INR. Using Neteller, Skrill et. al., are, again probable FEMA violations.
Dafa, of course, did not stop with that. Its surrogate, dafanews, a sports news portal, is firmly ensconced in the Indian ad space. It's partnered with Bengaluru FC, Chennaiyin and Mumbai, three ISL clubs.
Visit the dafanews portal ( https://in.dafanews.com/ ) and you will not be shocked. There are multiple links taking you back to dafabet (shock, horror).
In betway, India doesn't figure under the restricted section even though lawyers maintain online sports betting is illegal.
How did Sony even manage to get the ads on the air? Realised that while there are special provisions banning ads of this nature on TV, it's an undefined space (grey area) on an OTT platform.
That Indians are using online sports betting isn't really a surprise. I wrote this in 2017. https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-new-indian-express/20170407/282355449596948
What's changed now? It's so front and centre. The companies aren't even pretending anymore. It's likely they have passed on the liability to the users and they themselves may not be charged from any resulting offence (am assuming here).
And that's where the centre comes in. It's not very clear where they stand on the issue but they can ban these websites from functioning. Because of the very specific nature of these websites, the Andhra Pradesh govt wrote a letter to Ravi Shankar Prasad in October.
The AP govt wanted the minister to enforce the banning of more than 130 websites in the state. Out of the 130+ websites, betway and dafa were included. As of two days ago, both dafa and betway continue to function in AP.
Needless to say not a single spokesperson was made available to provide clarity.
SonyLIV refused to speak, dafa did not respond, MEITY refused to speak, RBI refused to speak.
January 29 -- the next date of hearing for this specific case -- hopefully will provide some clarity as to the Centre's stance.
Finally, lost in all the noise yesterday, was an important piece of information on @ESPNcricinfo. The owner of betfair has invested in Rajasthan Royals (obviously not illegal or anything, but found it interesting).
And here's the piece I wrote chronicling the whole thing. FIN. https://www.newindianexpress.com/sport/cricket/2021/jan/15/sports-betting-sites-thrive-despite-clamp-2250622.html
