For affiliates, India used to resemble the ultimate “just one more market” temptation: 1.4 billion people, cricket functioning somewhere between sport and civic religion, cheap mobile data and instant payments. Add millions of gambling-related searches and the SEO spreadsheet practically winked at you.
The audience has not gone anywhere. The addressable legal opportunity has.
Since 1 May 2026, the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act has prohibited online money games across India, whether based on chance, skill or both. It also prohibits their advertising and payment facilitation. That dismantled the legal premise supporting paid fantasy sports, rummy and poker, while leaving social games and registered esports on the permitted side of the line.
For affiliates, this is not merely an operator compliance story; it is a development that rewrites the value, and risk, of every click.
Big traffic, awkward destination
The raw demand remains colossal. Research from CUTS International recorded more than 5.4 billion visits to 15 illegal gambling platforms and their mirror sites between April 2024 and March 2025.
More than 3.5 billion were direct visits, suggesting users were typing addresses, using bookmarks or following privately shared links rather than simply stumbling in from Google.
That was measured before the national ban took effect, but newer advertising evidence suggests offshore acquisition hasn’t retired to a quiet beach; the Advertising Standards Council of India recorded 6,933 illegal-betting cases in 2025/26, making offshore betting its most violative category. Illegal betting also accounted for 54% of the influencer violations it processed.
India was already targeting the promotional layer before the national Act. Government advisories warned influencers, endorsers and advertising intermediaries against direct and surrogate promotion of offshore betting
To an affiliate, those numbers can look like opportunity, but they are better understood as proof of demand – the two of which are no longer interchangeable.
A ranking is only valuable if there is a lawful, stable operator at the other end. Offshore brands can change domains, payment routes, terms and affiliate programmes with impressive athleticism. A blocked mirror can turn yesterday’s top-converting page into today’s beautifully optimised dead end. Similarly, revenue share is far less exciting when tracking disappears or the operator simply vanishes in a puff of smoke…
The affiliate is not invisible
The most dangerous assumption is that legal exposure stops with the sportsbook. Section 6 of the Act prohibits any person from making, causing, aiding or otherwise becoming involved in advertising that directly or indirectly promotes an online money game. Breaching it can bring up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to INR5m ($52,000), or both.
Whether a review, comparison page, bonus guide, tracking link or influencer post crosses that line depends on its facts and deserves local legal advice. But a prominent “PLAY NOW” button attached to an offshore operator is unlikely to become journalism simply because the page also explains cricket’s net run rate.
India was already targeting the promotional layer before the national Act. Government advisories warned influencers, endorsers and advertising intermediaries against direct and surrogate promotion of offshore betting. Authorities said offending posts or accounts could be disabled, while consumer-protection and other penalties might follow.
Commercial risks accompany the legal ones. Platform restrictions limit advertising, payment disruption hurts conversion, domain blocking breaks links and an operator serving a prohibited market offers limited recourse if commissions are disputed.
In other words, an affiliate may acquire the player, shoulder the reputational risk and discover that the only guaranteed conversion was its own legal bill.
The black market’s bad bargain
Prohibition creates an uncomfortable asymmetry. Compliant Indian businesses switched off money games, while offshore operators can rotate mirrors, use surrogate brands and recruit promoters through social and messaging channels.
In March 2025, tax investigators said roughly 700 offshore entities were under scrutiny. They had blocked 357 URLs, targeted nearly 2,400 bank accounts and frozen around INR1.26bn.
India still offers scale, fandom and extraordinary digital engagement. What it does not currently offer is a defensible national online-gambling funnel
This cat-and-mouse game may create short-term affiliate revenue, but it also selects for partners most willing to ignore regulation – not exactly a reassuring due-diligence criterion.
Nor should affiliates assume enforcement is too large a task to reach them. Operators are obvious targets, but publishers, influencers and local acquisition networks leave cheaper, more visible trails.
The offshore brand may be several jurisdictions away, but the affiliate’s website, social account and bank relationship are often much closer.
Pivot, don’t punt
India is not commercially irrelevant to affiliates; it is product-specific. Registered esports, free-to-play social games, non-stake subscriptions, gaming hardware, streaming and events offer legitimate audience-building possibilities. Licensed land-based casinos, lotteries and horse racing present narrower, state-sensitive content opportunities, provided promotion is checked against applicable rules.
There’s also value in informational coverage that doesn’t funnel readers towards prohibited play: regulation, enforcement, game development, esports and consumer protection all attract industry audiences. The skill is monetising interest without sending readers into the laps of offshore onlookers.
Could the Supreme Court’s forthcoming constitutional hearing reopen part of the real-money sector? Possibly. Affiliates should certainly monitor it, but not mortgage the domain portfolio on it.
India still offers scale, fandom and extraordinary digital engagement. What it does not currently offer is a defensible national online-gambling funnel. The best play is not, therefore, finding a smarter route around the barricade; it is building the audience now, and keeping the links clean enough to monetise if a legal road ever reopens down the line.