Betting Apps Banned in India: What Is Actually on the Record?

Quick answer: There is no official, complete list of betting apps banned in India. Blocking orders are issued confidentially under Section 69A of the IT Act. What is on the record: a MeitY order blocking 22 illegal betting apps including Mahadev Book, over 7,800 betting and gambling sites and apps blocked as of early 2026, and the Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROGA), which bans all real-money online gaming from 1 May 2026.

Search "betting apps banned in India" and you'll find dozens of confident lists — "22 apps," "138 apps," "7,800 sites" — each one presented like an official government register. Here's the uncomfortable truth: there isn't one. No single government page lists every banned betting app in India, and most of the sites publishing these "complete lists" are guessing, recycling old news, or simply making it up.

That gap — between what people are searching for and what actually exists — is exactly what this article is here to clear up.

Is There an Official List of Banned Betting Apps in India?

Blocking in India doesn't work through one public register. It happens through Section 69A of the IT Act, which allows the government to order internet service providers to block specific websites or apps — but these blocking orders are typically issued confidentially, directly to ISPs, not published as a running public list. Multiple agencies are involved in parallel: the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issues the blocking orders, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigates the money laundering side, and the Income Tax Department pursues tax evasion angles. None of them maintain a single, unified, continuously updated public master list.

On top of that, blocked platforms routinely reappear under mirror domains and clone apps within days, which is precisely why a "complete list" published in March is often stale by June.

Which Betting Apps Are Banned in India? What's on the Public Record

This doesn't mean nothing is verifiable — some enforcement actions are genuinely well-documented through official government channels. One clear example: MeitY issued blocking orders against 22 illegal betting apps and websites, including Mahadev Book and Reddyannaprestopro, following an Enforcement Directorate investigation into a betting app syndicate — this was confirmed through an official government press release, not a secondary blog.

Beyond individual documented cases like that one, government officials have described cumulative enforcement at a much larger scale — reporting from early 2026 cites over 7,800 betting and gambling websites and apps blocked to date, with hundreds more added in periodic sweeps. That figure comes from official statements reported in the press, not from a browsable government database — which is exactly the nuance most "complete list" articles skip past.

Names that recur across multiple enforcement actions and reporting — including international operators like 1xBet and Parimatch — appear repeatedly enough to be treated as consistently targeted, even without one definitive consolidated source confirming every instance.

The flip side: gaming marketing itself isn't banned. Qualifying esports are recognised and promotable — here's where esports marketing in India is heading in 2026.

Is Online Betting Legal in India in 2026? The Law That Changed

This enforcement activity now sits inside a much stronger legal framework than existed even a year ago. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (PROGA), with Rules that came into force on May 1, 2026, imposes a complete ban on all online money games — regardless of whether they involve skill, chance, or both — and makes offering, advertising, or facilitating payment for them a criminal offense. This is a major shift from the earlier, more fragmented state-by-state gambling law framework, and it gives blocking actions a much clearer, centralized legal basis going forward. I've covered how this plays out underground in iGaming in India: under the table.

How to Check If a Betting App Is Risky (Since No List Is Complete)

Given that no single list can ever be fully current, the more reliable approach is knowing the warning signs directly:

• It's a real-money betting or casino app with no visible Indian regulatory licensing — under current law, this category is prohibited outright, regardless of whether it happens to still be reachable
• It asks for KYC documents, UPI details, or bank information before you can verify anything about who operates it
• It's accessible only through a mirror site, a shortened link, or a sideloaded APK rather than an official app store
• It was reported blocked before, and you're accessing it again through a slightly different domain name

None of these require checking a list at all — they hold regardless of whether a specific app has been formally blocked yet.

What To Do vs. What To Avoid

Do:

• Treat "is there an official list" as a real question with a real answer — no, there isn't one — rather than trusting any single site's "complete list" claim at face value
• Check for verifiable government sources (PIB press releases, official MeitY statements) when a specific blocking claim matters to you
• Understand that under PROGA, the legal risk now extends to real-money gaming broadly, not just a specific named list of apps

Avoid:

• Treating any third-party "banned apps list" article as an authoritative, current, or complete source
• Assuming an app is safe simply because it doesn't appear on a list you found — new domains and clones appear constantly
• Using a mirror site or VPN to access a platform you suspect has been blocked — this doesn't change the underlying legal risk, it just adds a technical workaround on top of it

If You Work in This Space: What's Actually Still Open to You

If you're a marketer, affiliate, or business owner reading this because you're trying to figure out how to keep operating around these restrictions, it's worth being direct: there's no compliant way to keep serving real-money betting to Indian users under the current law, and no technical workaround (mirror domains, VPNs, offshore redirects) changes that legal exposure.

What genuinely remains open, and is worth building in instead (I go deeper in how to start an iGaming affiliate site in India in 2026, and I explain how I connect SEO, paid ads and content into one compliant system on my 2026 digital marketing growth page):

• E-sports. Competitive gaming — tournaments, team coverage, stake-free prediction formats — is explicitly carved out as legal under PROGA, and it's markedly less competitive than gambling content ever was, since most established gambling affiliates haven't pivoted here yet.
• Free-to-play and social games. Ad-monetized or subscription-based games with no real-money stakes are fully permitted, opening the door to legitimate app review, mobile gaming content, and affiliate work with no legal ambiguity.
• International-facing affiliate or marketing work. Serving licensed operators in markets outside India — where real-money iGaming remains legal — is a legitimate model, provided the content and traffic genuinely target those markets. This is assessed on language, currency and payment methods, not a disclaimer alone, so get a lawyer's review first. For organic reach in those markets, see casino SEO in 2026.

If you're a licensed operator or brand trying to grow in legal markets without getting accounts suspended, that's exactly the compliance-first iGaming marketing I do as a performance marketing specialist in Mumbai — see my digital marketing services and selected work — let's make your brand more interesting.

The Real Takeaway

The honest answer to "is there an official list of banned betting apps" is no — and every article claiming otherwise is either working from an outdated snapshot or simply inventing confidence it doesn't have. What is real and verifiable: individual government-documented enforcement actions, a legal framework under PROGA that now bans real-money online gaming outright, and warning signs that apply whether or not a specific app has been formally blocked yet. In this space, knowing how to evaluate risk yourself is more reliable than trusting any list to be current.

This article reflects publicly reported information as of September 2026 and is for general informational purposes. It is not legal advice.