Spurred by a love of gambling, they place cryptocurrencies, instead of cash, with offshore bookmakers based in Curacao, a southern Caribbean island, to gamble on a range of games – from poker and rummy to cricket and football. They think this could be a nice way to stay off the radar: bypass the banking channels and leave no transaction trail.
Depositing cryptos is an option that few have tried in the past. But with a blanket ban on RMGs in India and banks closely monitoring new customers to avoid mule accounts, Indian players with deep pockets and the resources to acquire cryptos are trying their hand at it. They are players in a niche market where crypto deposits and subsequent crypto gaming winnings from RMG betting double as a bet on the digital coins as their prices rise.“With several Indians using foreign cryptocurrency wallets for payments and withdrawals, it is becoming almost impossible for Indian authorities to track such transactions,” said Jay Sayta, a technology and gaming lawyer.“This raises the possibility of massive, undetected money laundering and tax evasion through such illegal gambling platforms.”
Overseas gambling websites have started promoting their services more aggressively following the passage of the Promotion & Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, and the consequent discontinuation of services by most legitimate online RMG companies based in India, he said. For these international gaming companies, Curaçao, an autonomous region within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was an obvious choice. A loose compliance regime until 2023 paved the way for several gaming startups and crypto casinos to set up shop there, as the island offered a “faster, cheaper and more accessible licensing route”. While these overseas gaming companies may be within the broad contours of their home country’s laws, Indian RMG players who deal with them ultimately enter a gray zone. Most of them buy cryptos like USDT (stablecoins pegged to the US dollar) from the black market and then move the coins to the digital wallets of the foreign gaming companies to place their bets.
“Just as there is a Hawala market for foreign currencies, there is also a black market for cryptos. Of course, it is not a mass market, but seasoned players know the agents who can buy cryptos for them at a small premium for cash. Once the USDT is credited to their private wallet, they move the digital asset to another private wallet to ensure this is not a ‘flash-USDT’ is, these are fake coins that disappear after a day or two,” a senior official said. of the crypto exchanges.
For this group of RMG players, tapping into the black market is necessary as there are hurdles in freely withdrawing virtual digital assets (VDAs) purchased on Indian exchange platforms. Not only do most local platforms restrict easy withdrawals and transfers of cryptos to private wallets, but such transactions are reported to the Financial Intelligence Unit, a central anti-money laundering agency.
However, the offshore RMG companies are not bound by such regulations. “The digital currency,” says the website of one such foreign platform, “stands out from other payment options because you don’t have to worry about third-party interference, making it one of the fastest and cost-efficient transactions available.”
“Once your deposit has been verified, your Bitcoin will be available on the spot to place bets. Another benefit of the digital currency is the added security and discretion in online transactions,” it promises. The combination of public and private keys provides a higher level of security for individual users, it added.
Another foreign RMG company, marketing its crypto deposit option, says transactions in cryptocurrencies are “relevant for users who prefer digital currencies.”
Faced with such loopholes and technologies to game the system, Sayta believes that the government should reconsider its decision to ban online money gambling as it has failed to curb gambling through illegal offshore websites, and instead look at a regulatory framework for real money skill-based gaming in the country, which would allow such transactions to be tracked and taxed.
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