NICI and consumer bodies urge govt to ban opinion trading platforms in India

New Delhi: The New Indian Consumer Initiative (NICI) and a coalition of consumer interest organisations have submitted a joint representation to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Securities and Exchange Board of India, Advertising Standards Council of India, and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs, on prohibiting opinion trading platforms in India.

According to the representation, these platforms offer pure-play betting activities that mislead consumers through deceptive advertising, luring them to indulge in illegal and unauthorised activity, and exposing them to financial and psychological risks.

The signatories of the representation, which include Ramjibai Mavani, Former Member, Parliament, Founder, Rajkot Jilla Grahak Suraksha Mandal, and Duraisingam, Chairman, Consumer Research, Education, Action, Training and Empowerment (CREATE), highlighted the consumer harm posed by these betting platforms especially due to misleading advertisements that show these opinion trading platforms as an investment platform.

Abhishek Kumar, Convenor, NICI, said “Through this joint representation, we urge the government to prohibit opinion trading in India and take decisive action, including issuing interim instructions to avoid consumer harm, banning digital and social media advertisements, prohibiting app stores, cloud service providers, and payment gateways from supporting these platforms. We also urge the Central Consumer Protection Authorities to investigate misleading claims and for law enforcement agencies to freeze assets linked to these platforms.”

According to the representation, opinion trading platforms allow users to wager money on real-world event outcomes, mimicking financial markets but fundamentally functioning as gambling and betting platforms. 

With an estimated trading volume exceeding Rs 50,000 crore annually and reaching over five crore Indian users, they represent themselves as skill-based games or an investment platform. 

However, the binary nature of these wagers makes these platforms predominantly chance-based, raising concerns about their legality under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which prohibits unauthorised betting and gambling. 

The platforms use misleading advertising and financial terms like “Auto Profits” and “Stop Loss” to create an illusion of structured investments. Many advertisements, including influencer promotions, portray earnings as risk-free, potentially violating ASCI and CCPA guidelines on misleading promotions. 

Beyond financial losses, these platforms can lead to stress, compulsive behaviour, and normalization of gambling culture—particularly among economically vulnerable groups.