Key Points
- On 6 September, the BTRC appealed to Google to utilise artificial intelligence to automatically delete any illegal gambling content that is uploaded.
- In Bangladesh, more than 5 million people are already addicted to gambling online, and projections indicate that the number might reach 20 million by 2027.
- Documented research shows 42% of gambling ads reaching Bangladeshi mobile gamers carried Google’s own “Ads by Google” label, despite Bangladesh sitting outside Google’s approved advertising list.
Bangladesh Pushed Google Hard on Gambling Content – What Happened Next Says Everything
Five million people. That is the number Bangladesh’s own government puts on citizens already pulled into online gambling. Authorities know the number is growing. What they keep running into is the same wall: the platforms carrying the content are not in Dhaka, and neither are the servers.
On 6 September, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman, Maj Gen Md Emdad ul Bari (Retd), sat across from Google’s South Asia head of public policy, Kyle Gardner, at the commission’s Dhaka headquarters and made the ask plain. Google must use artificial intelligence to detect and remove betting, gambling, and illegal financial content automatically, not after complaints, not after review cycles, but immediately after it is published. The chairman’s words, cited in the BTRC press release: “We urged them to introduce effective AI-based technical measures to automatically detect and remove such content immediately after it is published.”
Politely delivered. But the frustration behind it has been building for years.
The Evidence Was Already on Google’s Own Network
Before getting to what Google said in response, it is worth sitting with what independent researchers have already documented. Dismislab, a Bangladeshi media verification platform, spent 30 hours monitoring six of the country’s most downloaded mobile games, including Ludo King, Carrom Pool, and 8 Ball Pool. This is what they discovered: 1 in every 11 advertisements in these games contained betting/gambling related content, and 42 per cent of such advertisements were tagged with Google’s own “Ads by Google.”
Google has Bangladesh listed explicitly as an ineligible country to place gambling-related advertisements. Under Google’s own stated policy, those ads should never have reached Bangladeshi users. Platforms including 1XBet, Babu88, and Batery were all documented running through Google’s ad network, with some gameplay sessions logging up to 15 gambling ads in a single hour. The audience for these games includes a significant share of minors.
This is where the controversy sharpens. Google’s policies say one thing. Google’s ad network did another. That is not a grey area; it is a documented gap between stated policy and actual delivery, and Bangladesh’s regulators are right to name it directly. A separate Dismislab investigation found over 4,000 active gambling ads targeting Bangladeshi users on Meta’s ad library in a single day, with operators spending thousands of dollars daily to reach a market where gambling is illegal. Both platforms collected ad revenue from these campaigns.
What the Data Actually Shows About the Scale?
In the report released in January 2026 by the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh, the number of individuals affected by gambling online has been identified as more than 5 million. However, without appropriate intervention measures, the total number of individuals affected will be well over 20 million by 2027. The estimated size of the market ranges from $62 million to $68 million, growing at an annual rate of 4.7% to 6.1%.
These figures are on the lower end, given the current drivers of growth in the market. First, the cost of smartphones has fallen significantly. Second, there is fast-growing penetration of mobile internet usage. Third, a young population seeks to earn money through online gambling. This fact is exploited by gambling providers, and their acquisition strategy takes advantage of it. Cricket seasons and tournaments lead to spikes in gambling activity, and this occurs in mobile apps as well as live-dealer platforms.
Every month without enforceable removal mechanisms at the platform level is, by design, a month that works in the operators’ favour.
Bangladesh Has Done Its Part – The Platforms Have Not
There has been considerable legislative initiative at the domestic level in 2026. In Bangladesh, the act of playing online gambling was declared illegal under the Cyber Security Act 2026, implemented on 10 April with a maximum jail term of two years and a maximum fine of BDT 1 crore ($81,000). Following that, the new Gambling Prevention Act of 2026 repealed the 159-year-old Public Gambling Act of 1867 on 1 July.
Enforcement has followed. The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) suspended or froze around 55,000 mobile financial service accounts tied to gambling and digital hundi networks, with a further 14,000 frozen in August 2026. Authorities have blocked 1,331 gambling portals and 123 apps.
The structural limit hits immediately: when an operator is blocked locally, a mirror site appears. When a payment channel is cut, cryptocurrency or an informal agent network fills the gap. Content keeps reaching users because the BTRC and other Bangladeshi agencies have no authority to remove content from platforms directly; every request must be submitted to the platform and then acted upon at the platform’s discretion. Bangladesh has built the dam, but the reservoir sits on someone else’s land.
Google Offered Interest – Bangladesh Needed Commitment
Gardner’s response was measured and, by all reported accounts, constructive in the long-term framing. He said Google was interested in exploring cooperation, would review the possibility of a local office in the future, and welcomed discussion on AI labs, engineer training, and startup support. He noted that some current limitations prevent a local Google presence from being established immediately.
On the specific request, faster and automated removal of gambling content, no timeline was offered and no commitment was publicly confirmed. That is the gap that matters most here. Bangladesh is not alone in pressing platforms on response times; earlier this year, the country’s telecommunications minister pointed out that neighbouring countries have legal frameworks that compel Meta to remove flagged content within 24 hours, while Bangladesh currently lacks equivalent mandatory provisions. Gardner said Google wanted closer coordination with Bangladeshi ministries. That is welcome. But coordination without obligation is optional.
Our Analysis: Bangladesh Is Asking Nicely for Something It Should Be Legally Entitled to Demand
We think the framing of this meeting deserves scrutiny. Google’s own advertising policies prohibit gambling ads in Bangladesh. That prohibition was violated, repeatedly, at scale, with Google’s own branding on the ads in question. The Dismislab evidence is not disputed. And yet Bangladesh’s regulatory position going into this meeting was one of requesting voluntary action, not enforcing a binding standard.
This is the real policy gap, and it is one Bangladesh needs to close legislatively rather than diplomatically. The Cyber Security Act amendments currently in discussion could introduce mandatory removal timelines, the kind of legal obligation that forces platform compliance rather than relying on goodwill. Until that exists, the BTRC’s leverage in any meeting with a global tech company is essentially conversational.
The High Court has shown what firmer pressure looks like. Justices directed the government to submit a progress report on gambling content removal within 30 days in May 2025, and a separate bench ordered a committee to investigate celebrity endorsements of gambling platforms. Judicial action has moved faster than regulatory diplomacy at every stage of this crisis.
The 6 September meeting likely produced useful groundwork. Whether it produces measurable outcomes depends entirely on whether Bangladesh’s next move is a legal one, and whether Google’s ad network stops serving gambling content to a country it already knows is not on its approved list.
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