The Centre has blocked a total of 581 apps, including 174 betting and gambling apps and 87 loan lending apps. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a blocking order against some 22 ‘illegal’ betting apps and websites, upon a request by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The banned apps were involved in money laundering through hawala, crypto, and other illegal routes. Some of the banned apps include Mahadev, Parimatch, Fairplay, 1XBET, Lotus365, Dafabet, and Betwaysatta. No offshore companies have registered in India since October 1.
The Centre has blocked a total of 581 apps so far and out of these, there are 174 betting and gambling apps and 87 loan lending apps. The numbers came soon after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a blocking order against some 22 ‘illegal’ betting apps and websites, including Mahadev Apps.
“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,” Pankaj Chaudhary, minister of state for finance, said in a reply to Lok Sabha, The Economic Times reported.
The illegal betting and gambling app has been in the spotlight and the order to block 22 ‘illegal’ betting apps and websites was issued upon a request by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which was investigating an alleged money laundering syndicate.
Why these apps are banned
In October, a report by the same publication said that the government found 114 illegal betting and gambling apps operating in the country through domain farming. In February, the government blocked 138 such illegal betting and gaming websites.
Notably, in July, the Centre had amended the IGST Act which makes it mandatory for all offshore gaming companies to be registered in India. Furthermore, the act also gave the Centre the power to block websites which are not registered and are violating laws.
The betting 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.
Names of some banned apps
Apart from Mahadev, some of the apps that were banned include Parimatch, Fairplay, 1XBET, Lotus365, Dafabet and Betwaysatta. Many of these are on the banned list and some were operating illegally in India.
Last week, in a reply to a Lok Sabha question, the minister of state had told parliament that no offshore companies have so far registered after October 1.