{"id":34696,"date":"2022-10-24T06:05:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T09:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=34696"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:41:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:41:43","slug":"india-258-arrested-in-connection-with-illegal-betting-app-mahadev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-258-arrested-in-connection-with-illegal-betting-app-mahadev","title":{"rendered":"India: 258 arrested in connection with illegal betting app Mahadev\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Police carried out a series of raids linked to the Mahadev app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

India.- Some 258 people have been arrested <\/strong>in Chhattisgarh over the past month for alleged involvement with the operation of an online betting app called Mahadev. Officers say the app was launched from Dubai <\/strong>and that centres were opened in India. The app was reported to have close to four million downloads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police told the Hindustan Times there were around 30 centres, mainly in Chhattisgarh<\/strong>. Each processed more than \u20b9200 crores of transactions, with most stakes in the range of \u20b91,000 to 5,000. Anyone who wanted to run a centre for the app would have to deposit about \u20b920 lakh, after which they would have the right to become administrators of unique IDs for their own customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brokers received between 6 per cent to 8 per cent commission from wagers, excluding salaries. The operators up to 20 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers said that many people betting on online applications were from the middle class. One businessman who placed bets through the app said it was an “addiction”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abhinav K Shukla<\/strong>, a law professor in Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, suggests that Chhattisgarh should enact legislation to specifically prohibit online gambling “as done by states such as Telangana<\/a>, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu.” He said this should be done via the Information Technology Act in order to prevent gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Through this, the state can build a strong legal mechanism to restrict the acts of online gambling,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India considers regulating online gambling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to local media reports, the government <\/strong>is considering an Online Gambling Regulation Act<\/strong>, that would create a central gambling regulator, the Online Gambling Commission, with a mandate to oversee the operations of online gambling operators and punish illegal operators. It would have the power to issue, suspend and revoke licences for online gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, apart from the Supreme Court\u2019s precedent on skill-based gambling, there is no federal statute to govern India\u2019s gambling industry, with each state taking its own stance on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police carried out a series of raids linked to the Mahadev app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":15630,"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 authorities have arrested 258 individuals in Chhattisgarh for their alleged involvement with the illicit Mahadev online betting app, which operated from Dubai and processed significant transaction volumes. This crackdown highlights the prevalent issue of unregulated online gambling in India, prompting calls for specific state-level legislation and broader federal consideration of an 'Online Gambling Regulation Act' to establish a central regulatory body.","focusai_entities":"Mahadev, Hindustan Times, Abhinav K Shukla, Hidayatullah National Law University, Online Gambling Commission, Supreme Court","focusai_location":"India, Chhattisgarh, Dubai, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Raipur","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"India Regulatory Outlook","query":"What specific legislative hurdles and political considerations might impact the timely enactment of a federal Online Gambling Regulation Act in India, and how would this proposed framework interact with existing state-level gambling prohibitions?"},{"label":"AML & Payment Controls","query":"Given the reported transaction volumes of the Mahadev app, what systemic failures in financial institution oversight and payment gateway controls allowed such extensive illicit money flows to occur, and what measures are being proposed to prevent future occurrences?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-34696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34696","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34696"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34740,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34696\/revisions\/34740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}