Bangladesh Targets 116 Gambling Sites in Digital Crackdown

Bangladesh's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) just handed the telecoms regulator a list of 116 online gambling websites to shut down, marking the government's most aggressive move yet against digital betting operations. The crackdown comes as authorities struggle to contain the booming underground online gambling economy that has exploded across South Asia in recent years.

The Criminal Investigation Department of Bangladesh has identified 116 websites running illegal online gambling operations and submitted the list to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) for immediate closure. This represents one of the largest coordinated efforts by Bangladeshi law enforcement to tackle the rapidly growing online betting industry, which has increasingly shifted from physical gambling dens to encrypted websites and mobile apps that operate across international borders. Online gambling remains strictly illegal under Bangladeshi law, governed by the Public Gambling Act of 1867 (a colonial era statute still in force) and reinforced by Islamic legal principles that prohibit gambling in the Muslim majority nation. Yet enforcement has struggled to keep pace with technology. Operators frequently use virtual private networks (VPNs), cryptocurrency payments, and offshore servers to evade detection and continue serving Bangladeshi customers. The websites identified by CID likely represent only a fraction of the total gambling ecosystem, with hundreds more sites operating through constantly changing domain names and proxy servers. The CID's investigation reflects growing alarm within government circles about gambling's social impact. Reports from community organizations indicate rising household debt, domestic violence incidents, and even suicides linked to gambling losses, particularly among young men who access betting platforms through their smartphones. The ease of mobile payments through services like bKash and Nagad has made it trivially simple to deposit funds into gambling accounts, creating what critics describe as a silent epidemic of addiction. BTRC now faces the technical challenge of actually blocking these sites. Simple domain blocking proves ineffective when operators can spin up new domains within hours. Deep packet inspection and IP blocking carry their own complications, potentially affecting legitimate services. The regulator has previously struggled with the cat and mouse game of content blocking, facing criticism both for overreach when legitimate sites get caught in the dragnet and for ineffectiveness when banned content remains easily accessible. The timing of this crackdown may also reflect political pressure. Bangladesh's interim government, which took power following massive student led protests in 2024, has sought to demonstrate its commitment to law enforcement and Islamic values as it works to establish legitimacy. Going after online gambling offers a politically safe target that appeals to both religious conservatives and families concerned about their children's welfare, while avoiding more contentious issues around press freedom or political opposition.

My Take

This crackdown will fail unless Bangladesh addresses the underlying economics. As long as there's massive demand for gambling (driven by economic frustration and lack of entertainment options) and zero legal alternatives, people will simply migrate to the next set of websites. China has tried this approach for years with its Great Firewall, and Chinese gamblers still find ways to bet billions through Macau proxies and crypto platforms. Bangladesh's infrastructure is far less sophisticated than China's, which tells you everything about how this will play out. The real story here is the government's desperation to be seen doing something about a problem that has no easy technological solution. Blocking 116 websites makes for good press releases and gives the CID a PR win, but within weeks these same operators will register new domains, switch to different payment processors, and continue business as usual. What Bangladesh actually needs is a conversation about legalization and regulation that nobody in power wants to have because it conflicts with religious orthodoxy. So instead, we get this performative enforcement theater while the underground gambling economy continues to thrive.

What Happens Next

Within the next month, BTRC will issue blocking orders to Bangladesh's major internet service providers (ISPs) for the 116 identified domains. The ISPs will comply with surface level DNS blocking that makes the sites inaccessible through standard browsers. By week two, at least half of these gambling operations will have already migrated to new domain names and updated their customer messaging through Telegram and WhatsApp groups that have become the primary communication channel for underground betting networks. The savvier operators will implement more sophisticated domain rotation schemes, cycling through pre registered backup domains automatically. The more interesting development will happen in about six weeks when CID realizes that blocking alone achieved nothing and launches its second phase, targeting payment processors and mobile banking services that facilitate deposits. That's when this gets messy, because those same payment systems are used for countless legitimate transactions. Expect complaints from ordinary citizens suddenly finding their bKash accounts frozen because an algorithm flagged suspicious transaction patterns. Meanwhile, the gambling sites will pivot harder toward cryptocurrency payments, accelerating crypto adoption in Bangladesh in ways the government definitely did not intend. The unintended consequence of this crackdown may be pushing an entire generation of Bangladeshis to learn about Bitcoin and stablecoins just to place their bets.

What History Tells Us

Bangladesh's struggle with online gambling echoes India's experience over the past decade, where individual states have banned online gaming platforms with mixed results. In 2023, Karnataka's government attempted to ban online gaming entirely, only to face massive backlash from the tech industry and see most operations simply relocate to other states or operate through international servers. The Philippines offers a more distant parallel: in the early 2000s, President Gloria Arroyo cracked down on illegal gambling operations called "jueteng," only to discover that law enforcement and military officials were often the operations' primary protectors. That crackdown ultimately exposed deeper corruption but did little to stop gambling itself. The fundamental lesson from these cases is that gambling prohibition without addressing the economic incentives and corruption networks that sustain it typically fails, pushing the industry further underground rather than eliminating it.