Magicwin betting case: ED discovers Pakistani angle, questions actors promoting app

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has discovered a Pakistani angle in the Magicwin betting app case for the first time, NDTV reported quoting sources.

According to the report, the betting app is owned by a Pakistani national and money has been sent from India to Pakistan via Dubai.

Several actors and celebrities from big and small screens have promoted Magicwin on social media.

The ED officials have already questioned actors Mallika Sherawat and Pooja Banerjee. They were summoned by the ED over the weekend and at least seven more celebrities would be summoned in the coming weeks, the report added.

The ED probe has found that Magicwin is a betting website which has been shown as a gaming website. The Indian nationals living in Dubai operate the betting app and the games available on the website are run in the Philippines and other countries where betting is legal.

The report further mentions that the games’ Application Programming Interface (API) is copied from other sources and rebroadcast on Magicwin. The app has many social media accounts which it uses to promote itself in India.

In the last six months, the ED has conducted 67 raids in this case across the country. Last week, the investigating agency raided 21 locations of people linked with the Magicwin case in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune and seized about ₹3.55 crore.

Magicwin’s response:

Sharing their response to Mint, Magicwin said the allegations of money laundering are baseless and they cited Octa is involved in money laundering.

They said, “We strictly adhere to global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) best practices, including continuous monitoring of our traders’ activities, and enforce rigorous due diligence measures to detect any suspicious transactions. Additionally, as a law-abiding entity, we fully cooperate with local authorities when presented with duly executed requests and legitimate legal justification.”

Apart from this, an Octa Press spokesperson, in a statement, said, “As a CFD (Contract for Difference) broker, we act as intermediaries between financial markets and traders, enabling secure and informed trading across various asset classes. Trading with CFDs involves analysis and decision-making based on market trends, while betting, by contrast, relies on chance and speculation—neither of which applies to our operations.”

Government bans a dozen betting apps

In September this year, the Government of India banned over two dozen websites which were allegedly laundering money from illegal offshore betting applications – masquerading as ecommerce and forex trading portals – after investigations by the ED.

They include OctaFX, Fairplay, Magicwin, Mahadev Online Book and 30 others, operated by promoters located in Spain, Dubai, Russia and Pakistan, the Economic Times reported, adding that the proceeds of crime were pegged at ₹10,000 crore.