Kerala police issues notice to Google, Meta over gambling advertisements

Amidst ongoing debate on Meta’s policy for alcohol and gambling ads in India, Kerala Police has sent a notice to Google and Meta over apps and ads that are linked to gambling websites and apps. The victims of the scam received messages from gambling operators on WhatsApp. Storyboard18 broke the news on Tuesday about Meta’s policy to allow alcohol and gambling advertisements on their platform.

Kerala state police has asked Google to remove 60 fake lottery and gambling apps from its Google Play Store. A similar notice has been sent to Meta to remove advertisements of such fake lotteries and gambling platforms from social media platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram managed by it.

Kerala’s State Police Media Centre (SPMC) said that fake advertisements in the name of ‘Kerala Megamillion Lottery’ and ‘Kerala Summer Season Dhamaka’ have been circulating on social media platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram for some time stating that lotteries run by the state government can be bought online.

“After a cyber patrolling, we discovered 60 apps, 25 fake Facebook profiles and 20 websites that are connected to the scam”, the SPMC officer said.

A senior leader from Real Money Gaming industry said, “These scam advertisements are taking place on the Meta and Google platforms. Imagine once these betting and gambling are legitimized, these scams will grow in large numbers. This will affect crores of people in India and they might get scammed.”

According to police, victims of the scam received messages via WhatsApp which claimed that the Kerala government has started an online lottery and on spending Rs 40 rupees there is a chance to win up to Rs 12 crore. Victims who send Rs 40 on the number mentioned in the message get a fake lottery ticket image via WhatsApp.

The fraudsters then send artificially fabricated results to make the victim believe that the ticket has won a prize of Rs 5 lakh. From here, a scammer posing as a government representative calls the ‘ticket holder’ and asks them to transfer a certain amount to a bank account towards ‘GST’ and ‘stamp duty’ to receive the prize money.

The Kerala police have urged the public to be careful not to fall prey to such online lottery and gambling scams and to immediately call on the number 1930 if they suspect that a financial fraud is taking place.