India's government blocked 174 betting and gambling sites
“Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) blocked a total of 581 applications under section 69A of IT Act, 2000 which includes 174 betting and gambling related applications, 87 loan lending applications and other applications including gaming applications like PUBG, GArena Free Fire etc,” Chaudhary told in a reply to Lok Sabha.
The illegal betting and gambling app has been in the spotlight recently with MeitY last month issuing a blocking order against some 22 'illegal' betting apps and websites, including Mahadev Apps.
The order was issued upon a request by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which was investigating an alleged money laundering syndicate.
The government in February had blocked 138 such illegal betting and gaming websites, however some of them were still operating.
In July the Centre had amended and notified the IGST Act which mandates that all offshore gaming companies need to be registered in India.
It also gives the central government power to block websites which are not registered and are violating laws.
In October, The Economic Times had reported that the government found as many as 114 illegal betting and gambling platforms operating in India through domain farming.
These platforms were collecting UPI payments through proxy bank accounts and the amount accumulated in proxy accounts is being remitted through hawala, crypto and other illegal routes.
Later the matter was flagged once again in a presentation to the revenue department last week by domestic online gaming companies.
They had also shared the modus operandi of how several offshore betting and gambling platforms were managing to illegally operate in India.
Some prominent platforms operating illegally are Parimatch,
