is banned in all states<\/a><\/em><\/strong> and union territories in India, except for Sikkim. Surrogate or misleading advertising is banned under the draft guidelines specified by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. But the IANS report suggests that gaming companies are carrying out advertising under the guise of news.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt said: \u201cMost of these are advertising in the garb of news entities. But the logos and the fonts used by these news units on jerseys are unmistakably similar to that of their parent companies, i.e. betting firms. Also, links of the parent betting websites are prominently advertised on the websites of these supposed \u2018news\u2019 platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DafaNews, PariMatch News, SBOTOP.net and Indinews are some of the brands involved in actions with clubs such as NorthEast United, Kerala Blasters, Chennaiyin FC, Mumbai City FC, ATK Mohun Bagan, FC Goa and Bengaluru FC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DafaNews, in particular, is linked to Bengaluru FC, Chennaiyin FC and Mumbai City FC, who are part of a global chain of clubs owned by Abu Dhabi-owned City Football Group. The DafaNews website has multiple links to Dafabet, a betting company based out of the Philippines which is often advertised in the live telecast of the India-Australia cricket matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked about the sponsorship, Bengaluru FC owner Parth Jindal said that the club is associated with DafaNews as a news portal and not the betting website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: \u201cMumbai City\u2019s partnership with DafaNews is fully compliant with all regulations and we are looking forward to working with our new partner in this unique season ahead of us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NorthEast has PariMatch News as its main sponsor while Kerala Blasters have listed it as an \u201cassociate sponsor\u201d and its logo is featured on the right sleeve of the team\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SBOTOP.net was announced as a \u201cprincipal team sponsor\u201d of ATK Mohun Bagan and the website address features prominently on the club\u2019s jersey. The website issues predictions and tips for a wide array of sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SBOTOP and SBOTOP.net share the same logo, but while SBOTOP.net offers content on cricket and football, SBOTOP is a betting website operated by Isle of Man-based Celton Max.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IANS says Indinews\u2019s parent company is Indibet, a website that offers cricket-based betting odds and displays a Curacao gaming licence. Indinews is featured on the jerseys of FC Goa in the ISL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All India Football Federation (AIFF) general secretary Kushal Das said that the association found no problems with the teams being sponsored by the websites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DafaNews, PariMatch News and SBOTOP.net have gone beyond fantasy sports and cricket to seek opportunities with football teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Indian online betting firms are circumventing the national sports betting ban and surrogate advertising regulations by sponsoring Indian Super League football teams through ostensibly \"news\" portals. This strategy, highlighted by an IANS report, allows brands like Dafabet and PariMatch to gain significant brand visibility in a restricted market, raising questions about regulatory compliance and the efficacy of existing governance frameworks.","focusai_entities":"DafaNews, PariMatch News, SBOTOP.net, Indinews, Dafabet, PariMatch, SBOTOP, Indibet, Celton Max, NorthEast United, Kerala Blasters, Chennaiyin FC, Mumbai City FC, ATK Mohun Bagan, FC Goa, Bengaluru FC, Indian Super League, India\u2019s independent News Service, City Football Group, All India Football Federation, Parth Jindal, Kushal Das","focusai_location":"India, Sikkim, Abu Dhabi, Philippines, Isle of Man, Curacao","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), marketing_crm (0.9), investor_analyst (0.8), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Enforcement Outlook","query":"What specific enforcement actions or legislative amendments are anticipated from Indian regulatory bodies in response to the widespread use of surrogate advertising by iGaming operators?"},{"label":"Operator Risk Assessment","query":"How are international iGaming operators assessing the legal and reputational risks associated with employing surrogate advertising models in jurisdictions with explicit betting bans and strict advertising regulations?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[158,16334,155],"tags":[4937,58,233],"class_list":["post-12569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-home","category-south-asia-news","category-sports-betting-news","tag-football","tag-india","tag-sports-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12584,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12569\/revisions\/12584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}