Nepal imposed a nationwide ban on all betting apps and websites effective Monday, 30 March 2026. Yet market data suggests the crackdown may not curb demand as intended.
According to data from iGaming market‑intelligence platform Blask, user interest in gambling rose steadily throughout 2025. According to Blask Index, which tracks aggregated user search activity to show how much attention online gambling brands receive in a given market, user interest climbed from 939,800 in March to a peak of 1.99 million in January 2026. Even in February, interest remained high at 1.92 million, indicating only a marginal decline.
A market that kept growing
Blask data shows a consistent upward trajectory from March 2025 to January 2026, with an average index level above 1.27 million across the period. Growth accelerated in the second half of 2025, particularly between September when it reached 1.37 million and in December, hitting 1.77 million.
This expansion aligns with Nepal’s broader gambling market outlook by news platform iGamingToday, which has been projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 10.7 percent through 2026, driven by mobile adoption and digital payments. Both land-based casinos and online gambling platforms are contributing to this momentum.
At the same time, offshore operators intensified their presence. Foreign betting apps entered the market with Nepali-language advertising, influencer campaigns and localised payment options, exploiting regulatory grey areas and limited enforcement. These campaigns primarily targeted Nepali speakers, who make up nearly half (44.9 percent) of the population.
Major cricket events have also boosted betting interest is supported by available timelines of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy (19 February to 9 March 2025) and Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 (from 22 March). The Nepal Premier League Season 2, which occurred from November to December 2025, aligns with one of the sharpest growth periods in the dataset.
Regulation struggled to keep pace
Authorities had already begun tightening oversight in 2025. The government introduced new anti-money laundering rules in November 2025, requiring casinos to strengthen compliance. Under the rules, all casinos in the country must fully comply with the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Act. Earlier in July last year, Nepal’s Department of Tourism introduced a comprehensive directive aimed at curbing financial crimes within the casino sector by mandating stricter compliance measures to detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
However, gaps remained. Offshore platforms continued to operate widely, often using local banking channels and digital wallets to facilitate deposits and withdrawals. In another regulatory move, Nepal briefly banned social media in September 2025. Market data shows that online gambling interest in the country fell dramatically within a week after the social media ban, triggering a 74 percent decline in gambling interest within days. The downturn coincided with unrest triggered by the government’s decision on 4 September to block 26 social media platforms. Applications such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and X were inaccessible. At the same time, only a handful, like TikTok and Viber, remained online after registration with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
Where does demand go now?
Nepal’s situation mirrors patterns seen in other jurisdictions where strict prohibitions have struggled to eliminate gambling activity. Markets that imposed outright bans have often seen user demand shift rather than decline, with illegal operators capturing displaced traffic.
India’s use of offshore betting apps rose from about 68.3 percent to 82 percent after the country’s prohibition on online real-money games (RMG) took effect, according to a survey by public policy think tank CUTS International. Another survey by CUTS International found 83 percent of surveyed players in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu continued or began using offshore betting sites after the ban, a sharp rise from pre-ban levels.
Demand remains the defining factor
Nepal’s gambling market was not declining before the ban; it was growing. From under one million in early 2025 to nearly two million in early 2026, the trajectory reflects deep-rooted and expanding demand.
Meanwhile, the recent ban by Nepal’s telecommunications regulator on every betting app and related website is a mere change in scope and scale of enforcement. The Muluki Criminal Code 2074, passed in 2017 in Nepal, had already explicitly prohibited and criminalised gambling and betting. The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) had already been taking action against individual foreign gambling websites under the Telecommunications Act 1997.
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