Offshore betting firms: TV promotion grew 20-fold, digital 14-fold in two years
Parimatch News led the pack on TV with 99% share in ad volume alone, Fairplay News occupies ⅔ of the ad volume on digital media, reveals the data obtained from TAM
The global gambling firms, which are under the scanner of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for allegedly masquerading as sports news sites and promote betting in India through surrogate ads on various platforms, have been running their business and promotional activities in the country at a scale which many are unaware of. Their advertising and promotional activities grew exponentially over the last two years.
The TV ad volume of international “sports news” platforms, that reportedly double up as gambling firms, grew a whopping 20-fold in the last two years, according to data obtained from TAM up to October first week.
While the television medium gets the lion’s share of their ad volume, digital is not far behind. It grew 14-fold.
“Print and radio media didn’t get any ads from these companies,” a TAM official said.
Most of their growth came between 2021 and 2022 (till Oct), when many other companies were tightening their advertising budgets due to the pandemic-led slowdown and then inflation.
The MIB, in its October 3 advisory, had named offshore platforms Fairplay News, PariMatch, Betway, Wolf 777 and 1xBet for allegedly masquerading as news platforms to promote online gambling in India even as gambling is prohibited in most of the states.
Their ad blitzkrieg runs into hundreds of crores, experts speculate. Roland Landers, CEO of the All India Gaming Federation (AIGF), pegs the figure at ₹3,500 crores annually.
Most of these companies started getting a foothold in India a few years ago. Now, illegal offshore gambling has grown into a whopping Rs 5 lakh crores business in the country, according to an estimate by AIGF.
Parimatch News top advertiser
Parimatch News led the pack on TV with 99% share in ad volume alone, Wolf777 accounted for the rest.
In digital, Fairplay News occupies two third of the ad volume and the rest goes to Parimatch News, reveals the data obtained from TAM.
Govt Crackdown
On October 3, the government urged TV and digital media platforms asking them not to publish advertisements of online betting platforms on online and social media.
Referring to an advisory issue by it in June this year, the Ministry of the Information and Broadcasting in its statement stated, “Attention is invited to the advisory dated 13.06.2022 to publishers of news and current affairs content on digital media advising them to refrain from publishing advertisements of online betting platforms on online and social media. The online advertisement intermediaries were also advised not to target such advertisements towards the Indian audience. The advisory had been issued for the reason that betting and gambling is prohibited in most pans 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.”
AdEx Loss
According to industry estimates, the crackdown on these firms is expected to lead to Rs 4000 crore loss in AdEx.
Besides the Rs 3,500 crore spent by these firms annually on advertising and promotion, according to Lander, they are spending another Rs 500 crore on celebrity endorsers and influencers, taking the total AdEx in the sector to nearly Rs 4,000 crore.
