India’s Directorate General of GST Intelligence is weighing new payment-record rules that would require transaction records to identify the website that sent or directed a payment and disclose every bank account tied to a site’s goods and services tax registration. The aim is to make it easier to trace money moving through proxy merchants and other layers used by illegal online gaming and betting networks.
MediaNama reported that the recommendation went to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in August and then to the Department of Revenue. The framework is still under consultation, no draft rule had been published, and the main unresolved questions are who would collect and maintain the extra information and how the originating website would be verified.
The proposal follows a 14-month investigation that, according to LCB, identified INR 700 billion, or $7.4 billion, in transactions linked to illegal online gaming and betting during one financial year. That figure reflected transactions identified in the probe, not a final calculation of operator revenue, tax evasion or government losses.
Banks and payment gateways currently record the merchant that receives a payment, and illegal betting websites can use proxy merchant companies to obscure the trail. The reported change would add the website that initiated or directed the transaction, giving investigators another link when they examine the movement of funds.
The legal backdrop has also shifted. India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, banned online money games without distinguishing between skill and chance and also covered advertising and payment facilitation. Supporting rules took effect on 1 May 2026.
In a separate enforcement drive, the Press Information Bureau said DGGI had intensified action against offshore online gaming firms. It said around 700 offshore entities were under scanner, 357 websites or URLs had been blocked, nearly 2,000 bank accounts had been attached, 392 bank accounts linked to UPI IDs had been frozen with Rs 122.05 crore provisionally attached, and 166 mule accounts had been blocked.
