1xBet keeps showing up in India through cricket broadcasts despite the advertising ban

Researchers found offshore 1xBet ads in TV broadcasts of overseas cricket matches involving India’s national side. For PSPs and payment operators, the useful part is not the billboard logic itself but the enforcement pattern: India banned gambling advertising in October 2025, yet the operator is still appearing in cricket inventory that reaches a very large audience.

1. 1xBet sponsored three matches in late July in Zimbabwe between the national teams of India and Zimbabwe.
2. It also sponsored several matches during India A’s tour. India A is the reserve team, so this is not fringe content; it is still cricket with an India connection and a commercial audience attached.
3. The combined audience of the services that broadcast these matches may exceed 1 billion people. That makes the distribution problem obvious: if a brand can surface through sports rights and overseas feeds, a domestic ad ban does not automatically remove it from view.
4. 1xBet has been on local regulators’ blacklists since 2023. Indian law enforcement also regularly freezes large sums on accounts linked to the operator, with the last known case in March 2026, when it was accused of promoting illegal gambling through cricket websites.

For high-risk processors, the signal is straightforward: India is not only a marketing-risk market but also an enforcement market, and cricket remains the channel where offshore operators keep trying to stay visible.