Inside the murky "mirror" world of gambling applications is Mahadev App Row

 Inside the murky "mirror" world of gambling applications is Mahadev App Row

Many celebrities still support online betting services even though the government has made it plain that they are unlawful.

Delhi, New: According to HT, connections to the Mahadev Book platform can be found on the bulk of gambling websites that the government prohibited on Sunday night based on the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) advice.

As part of an ongoing campaign against these applications and websites, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) blacklisted 22 gambling websites, both overseas and in India. In February 2023, MeitY has blacklisted 138 websites and applications related to online betting.

At least two organizations' mirror websites, including Lotus 365, which were prohibited in February, were added in the most recent list. Even after the banning order was announced on Sunday night, HT was still able to access 19 out of the 22 websites either directly or via mirror websites without the need for a VPN until Tuesday afternoon. A betting website called 7cric.com that wasn't on the banning list is also pointed to by some of the websites and their mirrors.

All 22 websites were stopped at the request of the ED, a senior official said, and they are all related to Mahadev.

Mahadev Book "presents illegal betting facilities in different live games like poker, card games, chance games, investment on cricket, badminton, tennis, football etc., and also provide facility for playing a number of card games like Teen Patti, Poker, Dragon Tiger, Virtual Cricket games utilizing cards etc., to even APPs which enabled placing bets on different elections in India," according to the financial crimes probe agency's charge sheet, which was filed last month.

The ED claims that the platform's promoters, 28-year-old Sourabh Chandrakar and 43-year-old Ravi Uppal, first relocated to the United Arab Emirates but are now believed to be alternating between Sri Lanka, Australia, London, and the Caribbean.

The results of the ED investigation have shown that this internet betting syndicate is being remotely managed by Ravi Uppal, Sourabh Chandrakar, and his friends without their needing to be physically present in India. The charge sheet claims, "By promising them a share of profit and blinding with vulgar display of their wealth, they have appropriately outsourced the complete dirty work of arranging benami shell accounts with banks, hiring places of employment to run panels, advertising, hawala, laundering, etc. to willing 'Panel' partners."

Indian phone numbers and addresses are listed on a number of the restricted websites, either directly or via mirror websites. As an example, the location listed on tigerexch247.com.in is in Hyderabad; the address listed on cricketbets9.com, a mirror site for cricketbet9.com, is in Chandigarh; and the address listed on cricketbuzz.com.in, a mirror site for cricketbuzz.com, is in Chennai.

According to Cricketbuzz.com, Mahadev Book registered them in 2016 with an e-gambling license. Mahadev Book online betting IDs are provided by Rajat Wahi's Cricketbet9. Known as the "Biggest Book of Bengaluru," Reddy Book is available on many betting exchanges, such as BetBook247, SkyExchange, TigerExchange, JetExchange, and Lotus.

The mirror websites of Reddyannaofficial.in People from Telangana, Orissa, Assam, Sikkim, and Nagaland are advised to "leave the website immediately" by redyanna-book.in and anna-reddy.co.in.

Numerous websites are operated by Betfair, a division of UK-based Flutter Entertainment, whose Betfair Live Line was shut down in February 2023. These include gambling websites like 11xplay and exchanges like TigerExchange. Lotus365 and Laser247 use Curaçao-issued gaming licenses in their claims to be legitimate online gambling platforms. There are many websites that mention "Restricted Territories," but none of them include India.

The Mahadev Book manages many websites and private groups on chat applications, much like a lot of other websites and apps on the list.

Many of the 22 mentioned websites—such as mahadevbook.live and mahadevbookonline.com, fairplay.in and fairplay.io, lotus365.com and loturs365.in, and laser247.com and laserbook247.com—are mirror images of one another.

According to the charge sheet, "the betting websites present a contact number, and this number can only be communicated over WhatsApp." Approximately 1,000 WhatsApp users are employed in their primary contact center, which is located in the United Arab Emirates. A copy of the paper that HT possesses states that "the majority of the employees are from Chhattisgarh."

Reddy Anna, Mahadev Book, and Lotus365 are still active on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram, and WhatsApp, among other social media platforms. Two Mahadev Book Instagram accounts have amassed almost 79,000 and over 19,000 followers, respectively. Lotus365world is an Instagram account with over 149,000 followers. The IT Congressional Standing Committee in Mumbai brought up this matter as well last month, and Koo responded by saying that although their platform does not permit these kinds of advertisements, it does not forbid these businesses from creating user profiles and publishing content on the network, according to HT.

According to ED, Mahadev started operating in 2019–20, but with the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, it has seen a significant growth in customer base. ED said that Chandrakar's extravagant wedding in Dubai in February 2023 cost ₹200 crore.

Under the franchise-style business model used by Mahadev Book App, Panel is outsourced with a 70–30% profit-sharing arrangement. The charge sheet states that the panel operator is solely in responsibility of accepting and paying money as well as handling coins belonging to the given User-IDs.

Since June of last year, four advisories have been issued by the ministry of information and broadcasting to publishers of online current- affairs and news content, news channels, newspapers, online ad service providers (like Google and Facebook), and social media platforms to refrain from advertising online betting platforms. In spite of this, on October 12, 2023, Outlook, at least one newspaper, carried a brand placement for 11xplay and gold365.com. On Sunday, these two websites were prohibited.

Numerous celebrities still support online betting companies, even though the government has made it plain that they are unlawful. On the Lotus365 websites, one may see actors Suniel Shetty, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Kajal Aggarwal, Neha Sharma, as rapper Raftaar. Vivek Oberoi can be seen on Reddy Book's Instagram stories.