On August 25, 2025, Dream Sports CEO Harsh Jain told employees that 95% of the company’s revenue and effectively all of its profit had disappeared. Not over a quarter. Not over a bad month. Overnight. Dream11, the fantasy sports platform that once felt unavoidable during every IPL match, had just watched its core business model become a criminal offense.
That’s the headline event behind the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROGA) and the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026, which came into force on May 1, 2026, following gazette notifications from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on April 22, 2026. If you’ve been sending traffic to India, or you’re weighing whether to start, the short version is: the domestic market is legally dead, the offshore market is very much alive, and the two facts pull in opposite directions for anyone running creatives, payment flows, or partner deals in this GEO.
This guide breaks down what’s actually banned, what still funds a campaign, and where the real compliance risk sits — because it’s rarely where affiliates expect.
What PROGA Actually Bans (and What It Doesn’t)
PROGA collapsed a distinction that Indian courts had spent a decade building. Before this law, games of skill — rummy, poker, fantasy sports — enjoyed a degree of constitutional protection that games of chance never had. PROGA erases that line entirely for anything involving money. An “online money game” is now defined as any game, skill-based or not, where a player pays or deposits funds with an expectation of monetary return. There’s no license path, no grandfathering, no tolerance window. The prohibition is absolute from May 1, 2026, and it’s backed by real criminal exposure: up to three years imprisonment and a ₹1 crore fine for offering or facilitating payment for these games, with mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenses.
What survives is narrower than most affiliates assume, but it isn’t nothing.
| Banned | Still legal |
|---|---|
| Online casino, poker, rummy for stakes | Esports (no monetary stakes, skill-based) |
| Fantasy sports with paid entry | Land-based casinos (Goa, Sikkim, Daman) |
| Online sports betting | Horse racing betting (historic skill exemption) |
| Any online money game, regardless of skill component | State-run lotteries |
The esports carve-out matters more than it looks. Competitive gaming without a wagering component is formally recognized as a permissible activity, and platforms can register with the newly created Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI) to operate legally. Land-based gambling in Goa, Sikkim, and Daman also continues under state law — PROGA specifically targets online money games, not physical venues.
The Advertising Trap: Why Your Creatives Are the Real Risk
If you’re a media buyer, this is the section that should actually change your behavior. Section 6 of PROGA doesn’t just ban operators — it bans anyone who makes, causes to be made, or is otherwise involved in advertising that directly or indirectly promotes an online money game. That language is broad enough to catch publishers, ad-tech platforms running the inventory, agencies producing the creative, and affiliates driving the clicks. Celebrity endorsements, influencer promotions, banner ads, sponsored content, and even app-store listings for money games are all explicitly prohibited.
The penalty structure is separate from the operator penalties: up to two years imprisonment or a ₹50 lakh fine for advertising violations, with harsher terms for repeat offenses. This isn’t theoretical enforcement pressure, either. Before the law even passed, the Supreme Court had already asked the central government to help curb celebrity-endorsed gambling apps disguised as esports or social games, after a public interest litigation alleged that cricketers and film stars were driving addiction and cyber fraud through these endorsements.
For affiliates, the practical read is simple: the creative and the promotional angle are now higher-risk than the offer itself. A landing page that even indirectly frames a product as a money game — regardless of how it’s licensed offshore — sits inside the same advertising prohibition.
The Payment Chokehold
Section 7 goes after the money directly. No bank, financial institution, or payment facilitator is permitted to process transactions connected to online money gaming. Rule 19(2) requires immediate compliance when OGAI issues a payment-blocking direction for a specific game or platform.
This is the part of the law with the most immediate operational consequence. UPI, India’s dominant payment rail, is off the table for this vertical. Domestic bank transfers are off the table. Any funnel built around local payment methods for a money-game offer is not a compliance gray area — it’s a dead end. What still moves money is cryptocurrency, which is exactly why the offshore ecosystem hasn’t collapsed along with the domestic one.
States vs Centre: The Fight That Isn’t Over
Before PROGA, India’s gambling regulation was a patchwork built state by state. Nagaland, Sikkim, and Meghalaya each ran their own licensing regimes for online skill games — Sikkim’s framework dates back to 2008, Nagaland’s to 2016. Other states, like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, had already banned staked games outright, skill component or not.
PROGA claims override authority through Section 18, meaning the central ban applies even in states that had built functioning licensing systems. That’s precisely why the law is now facing a constitutional challenge: critics argue betting and gambling fall under the State List in India’s constitution, and the central government has stepped outside its lane. The Supreme Court has a final hearing scheduled on the constitutional questions, and as of this writing that hearing had not yet produced a ruling. Anyone building long-term content or campaigns around this GEO should treat the current framework as the operative reality, not a settled one — the outcome could shift the entire landscape again.
Land-based gambling sits outside this fight entirely. Goa’s casinos, Sikkim’s tourist casinos, and state lotteries continue operating under their existing state frameworks, since PROGA’s prohibition is scoped specifically to online money games.
The Offshore Reality: Where the Traffic Actually Went
Here’s the part most “India is banned” content gets wrong: banning a market and killing the traffic to it are not the same thing.
India has blocked or otherwise actioned 8,376 URLs connected to online betting and gambling as of late March 2026, with more than 4,800 of those blocks coming after PROGA took effect. That’s aggressive enforcement by any standard. It also hasn’t stopped the offshore market from growing. A survey conducted in Tamil Nadu in January 2026 found a 15.2% increase in offshore platform usage following the ban, and one industry estimate places the size of India’s offshore gambling market at a conservative $20 billion. Operators licensed in Curacao, Malta, and Anjouan continue serving Indian users through mirror domains and crypto payment rails, and enforcement to date has focused on operators and payment facilitators rather than individual bettors.
None of this makes India a safe or simple GEO to run. It means the traffic hasn’t disappeared — it’s moved to a different set of rails, with a different risk profile attached. Crypto-only deposits, VPN-dependent access, and offshore licensing are now baseline requirements rather than edge cases, and any affiliate deal built around domestic banking or India-facing celebrity marketing is building on ground that no longer exists.
What’s Still Fundable: Esports, Free-to-Play, and the Dream11 3.0 Case
Dream11’s response to the ban is the clearest case study available for what a compliant pivot actually looks like. Rather than challenge PROGA in court, Dream Sports chose to comply and restructure. CEO Harsh Jain ruled out layoffs, cut marketing and sponsorship spend, and redirected roughly 500 engineers toward new ventures under a rebrand internally called “Dream11 3.0” — a free-to-play, advertising- and sponsorship-funded model rather than a cash-contest one. The company later split into eight smaller business units, and more than 100 employees exited during that reorganization. Competitors including Gameskraft, Mobile Premier League, Zupee, Games24x7, and Junglee Games also cut staff as their own cash-based formats became unviable.
For affiliates, this points toward the verticals that remain fundable in India without touching the money-game prohibition: esports platforms operating under OGAI registration, ad-supported free-to-play products following the Dream11 3.0 model, and — as a genuinely niche angle — travel and tourism content built around the physical casinos in Goa and Sikkim, which remain legal for in-person visitors.
Vetting Checklist Before You Send a Single Click
- Confirm the payment rail first. If the offer depends on UPI or Indian bank transfers, it’s not viable — crypto is the only rail still functioning for this vertical.
- Audit the creative before the offer. Any celebrity, influencer, or direct promotional framing of a money-game product falls under the advertising ban, independent of where the operator is licensed.
- Check the operator’s actual licensing jurisdiction. Curacao, Malta, or Anjouan licenses are common among operators still serving India — verify which one applies before committing spend.
- Don’t assume state-level exceptions apply. Nagaland, Sikkim, and Meghalaya licensing regimes are currently overridden by the central ban regardless of state law.
- Track the Supreme Court case. The constitutional challenge is unresolved, and a ruling could change what’s enforceable overnight.
Key Takeaways
India’s online money-gaming market is legally shut down as of May 1, 2026, with no skill-based exception and no license path for casino, poker, rummy, fantasy sports, or online sports betting. Advertising — including influencer and celebrity promotion — and domestic payment processing are both separately criminalized, which makes creative and payment compliance the two biggest risks for affiliates, ahead of the offer itself. The offshore market hasn’t disappeared; it’s grown in places, running on crypto and VPN access with enforcement aimed at operators and payment facilitators rather than end users. Esports, ad-supported free-to-play products, and land-based casino tourism remain legitimate verticals to build around. The Supreme Court’s pending ruling on PROGA’s constitutionality is the single biggest variable that could reshape this GEO again.
FAQ
Is online gambling banned in India in 2026? Yes, for real-money online games. PROGA and the accompanying 2026 Rules ban all online money games — casino, poker, rummy, fantasy sports, and sports betting — regardless of whether they involve skill or chance. Land-based gambling, esports without stakes, horse racing, and state lotteries are not covered by the ban.
What exactly counts as an “online money game” under PROGA? Any game, skill-based or not, where a player pays or deposits money with an expectation of a monetary or equivalent return. The law removed the old legal distinction between skill games and chance games entirely.
Can Indian users still access offshore betting sites? In practice, yes. India has blocked thousands of URLs, but offshore operators licensed in jurisdictions like Curacao and Malta continue serving Indian users through mirror domains and crypto payments, and offshore usage has reportedly increased in at least one surveyed state since the ban took effect.
Is it legal to advertise gambling offers to an Indian audience? No. PROGA’s Section 6 bans any advertisement — direct or indirect — that promotes an online money game, including celebrity endorsements and influencer content. This penalty applies separately from penalties on operators, with its own prison terms and fines.
What happened to Dream11 and other fantasy sports platforms? Dream11’s parent company, Dream Sports, lost roughly 95% of its revenue overnight and pivoted to a free-to-play, ad-supported model rather than challenge the ban in court. Competing platforms including Gameskraft, Mobile Premier League, Zupee, Games24x7, and Junglee Games also restructured and cut staff.
Are esports or free-to-play games still legal to promote in India? Yes. Esports without monetary stakes is formally recognized as a permissible activity, and operators can register with the Online Gaming Authority of India (OGAI) to run it legally. Free-to-play, ad-supported gaming products also fall outside the money-game ban.
Could the Supreme Court overturn the ban? It’s an open question. PROGA is currently facing a constitutional challenge over whether the central government overstepped state authority on gambling regulation, and a final hearing has been scheduled. No ruling had been issued as of this writing, so the current framework should be treated as the active — but not necessarily final — state of the law.
What payment methods actually work for India traffic in 2026? Domestic banking and UPI are non-starters for money-game offers, since banks and payment facilitators are legally barred from processing these transactions. Cryptocurrency remains the functioning rail for offshore operators still serving Indian users.
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