India's Gaming Ban Backfires as Bettors Flee to Offshore Apps

When New Delhi outlawed real-money gaming, the official logic was clean and reassuring: switch off the apps, and you switch off the harm.

The legal backbone is the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, widely shortened to PROGA.

The immediate effect on the formal industry was brutal.

This is the central irony of the India gaming ban: a policy designed to shrink risk may have concentrated it.

The plumbing that keeps the shadow market alive is the very payments system India is most proud of.