Real Money Gaming ban will create hard-to-fill AdEx gap: Ashwin Padmanabhan

New Delhi: The impact of the ban on real money gaming in India will create a permanent void in the overall annual advertising spends that cannot be replaced, Ashwin Padmanabhan, Chief Operating Officer, WPP Media (South Asia). 

Speaking exclusively to BestMediaInfo.com, Padmanabhan said the impact will be concentrated but significant.

The advertising and media ecosystem in India is bracing for the ripple effects of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, which was passed by both houses of Parliament.

Even as Padmanabhan avoided coining any specific number, the legislation, aimed at tackling addiction, financial losses, and regulatory loopholes, threatens to drain an estimated Rs 10,000 crore from AdEx.

A former senior executive at Baazi Games said he would not be surprised if the figure were far higher than Rs 10,000 crore.

Multiple sources told BestMediaInfo.com that real money gaming platforms rely on all forms of advertising, including influencer marketing, and spend between 25% and 50% of their revenue on customer acquisition.

That said, the top five real money gaming platforms spend more than Rs 5,000 crore, while a similar amount is collectively spent by other players, including the long tail.

With the category having emerged as one of the largest spenders, especially in performance marketing, and a dominant investor in marquee cricketing properties, the move is expected to leave a lasting dent in the advertising industry.

Even for large platforms like Google or Meta, the online money gaming industry is one of the biggest categories in the performance marketing space. “There will surely be some impact from a large client aspect,” said Padmanabhan.

One of the biggest immediate concerns is the Indian Premier League (IPL), where RMG platforms have historically been among the heaviest advertisers. Padmanabhan estimates that anywhere from Rs 800 crore to Rs 1,000 crore of potential IPL spending could be impacted.

With the Bill set to become an Act after presidential assent, the pullback raises difficult questions about whether other categories can step in to fill the void.

While the digital ecosystem has an abundant inventory supply, marquee sporting events like the IPL operate on fixed inventory, making them especially vulnerable. The size of the RMG advertising wallet makes replacement unlikely.

According to Padmanabhan, only a handful of companies were fuelling the majority of spending. “Technically, finding a replacement for this particular expenditure is going to be difficult,” he told BestMediaInfo.com.

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, has two aspects. While it enforces a blanket ban on RMG platforms, it promotes e-sports and online games that do not involve money as an incentive to play and win.

Although industry observers have suggested e-sports could absorb some of the lost advertising, Padmanabhan dismissed the idea. “From a purely monetary standpoint, e-sports and RMG platforms are not the same. Technically, the amount of money has simply gone out of the category.”

Padmanabhan drew an insightful comparison between RMG advertising wallets and the startups’ wallets that were in the spotlight before 2023. “It is a permanent void. This cannot be replaced. Just like we could never replace all the money that the startups were spending a few years ago. That just went away,” he said.

From a broader advertising expenditure perspective, RMG’s contribution was highly concentrated in certain areas such as performance-driven digital campaigns and cricket-led sponsorships.

Outside of these verticals, its role in the media mix was negligible. “RMG’s impact on advertising is limited to a few categories. It’s limited to performance spends on digital and it’s limited to probably spends on cricket. It doesn’t impact the rest of the categories like print, radio, cinema, TV, and most of the branding on digital,” he clarified.

While advertisers across sectors will watch closely how the situation unfolds, Padmanabhan emphasised that the implications of a ban extend beyond ad spends.

“The impact of RMG is about a very large industry, which employs a lot of people, and which today is under the threat of extinction. That is the larger impact. Job losses will be quite significant. But if there’s a view that it is impacting society in general and at large, and it is good for society, I think the government will always think about that first,” he said.

He framed the government’s approach as one rooted in consumer-first thinking. Concluding, he said: “They’re also recognising that maybe, maybe, real money gaming is in some form impacting certain sections of society. So really, the government's thinking is coming from the consumer’s end.