| News Details |
| GoI issues advisory on advertisements promoting online betting promotions | |
New Delhi, October 04 (Scoop News)-The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued an 'advisory on Monday October 02,2022 on advertisement of online betting promotions' to publishers of news and current affairs content on digital media and publishers of online curated content, i.e. OTT platforms.
The Advisory dated 13.06.2022 issued by this Ministry to Private Satellite TV channels advising them to refrain from publishing advertisements of online betting platforms. The Advisory had been issued for the reason that betting and gambling is prohibited in most parts of the country, and pose significant financial and socio-economic risk for the consumers, especially youth and children. Accordingly, the promotion of
offline or online betting/gambling through advertisements is not advised in larger public interest.
It has now come to the notice of this Ministry that some online offshore betting platforms have started using news websites as a surrogate product to advertise their betting platforms on TV channels. Exemplars of such surrogate advertising on TV channels are enclosed at Exhibit-I.
Betting and gambling is an illegal activity in most parts of India. In accordance with the Paragraph 9 of the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements 2022 under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, it has been observed that since betting and gambling is illegal, advertisements of online offshore betting and gambling platforms are also illegal. In this regard, it may be noted that in accordance with the Advertising Code under Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995,
advertisements of betting platforms, being an illegal activity, can not be shown on TV channels.
In respect of the advertisements of the surrogate news websites operated by the online betting platforms, it may be mentioned that the logos of the concerned news websites are strikingly similar to the betting platform. The concerned betting platforms, and the corresponding news websites, are also not registered with any legal authority under Indian laws. Accordingly, the
online offshore betting platforms appear to be promoting betting and gambling under the garb of news as surrogate advertising. In this regard, the Department of Consumer Affairs has also informed that online betting platforms have been advertising themselves as professional sports blogs, sports news websites, etc. while providing an indicative list of online betting platformns which are using news for surrogate advertising.
Having regard to the provisions of the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements 2022 under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 read with the Advertising Code under Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995, it is informed advertisements of concerned news websites which are in fact surrogate advertisements for online offshore betting platforms, do not appear to be in
strict conformity with these laws.
In light of the Ministry's Advisory dated 13.06.2022 and the above, and having regard to the larger public interest involved, the private satellite television channels are strongly advised to refrain advertisements of online offshore betting platforms and/or their surrogate news websites or any such product/service depicting these platforms in ab. from broadcasting surrogate manner.
Contravention/violation of the above may invite penal action under the applicable laws.
This issues with the approval of the competent authority in the Ministry.
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