The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has conducted search raids at the Gurugram and Jind, Haryana offices of online gaming platform Probo and its promoters, seizing assets valued at Rs 284.5 crore. 

The investigation, conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), in connection with the company’s illegal gambling/betting activities across India.

ED initiated investigation on the basis of multiple FIRs registered under various sections of BNS (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita), 2023 and Public Gambling Act, 1867 against Probo Media Technologies and its directors/promoters Sachin Subhaschandra Gupta and Ashish Garg. 

"The complainants in the FIRs had alleged that they were cheated and dishonestly presented a scheme of earning money through simple "yes or no" questions while the scheme in reality promotes gambling by luring players to invest more in the hope of earning higher returns," ED said in its release.

The investigation revealed that the app/websites defrauds its users by initially promoting a deceptive image of a legitimate skill-based platform, only to ultimately exploit them through a betting mechanism where success is governed entirely by chance and not by the user's abilities or insights. The company claims its platform as ‘opinion trading’ and knowledge/skill is required to play the game. However, analysis of games shows that all the games can be answered with ‘Yes or No’ and hence, there are only two possible outcomes which makes it indistinguishable from gambling/ betting resulting in loss of hard earned money of the users.

ED searches also revealed that the app/website do not have a mechanism to prevent minors from registering as users, absence of proper due diligence (KYC), inducing new users through misleading advertisements and promoting opinion trading related to election results. 

The company, as per the ED investigation, had received Rs 134.84 crore against issue of preference shares from foreign entities based out of Mauritius, Cayman Island and others. 

The search also led to freezing of three bank lockers.

Probo has raised close to $28.5 million in funding, and counts marquee investors such as Peak XV, Elevation Capital, Nandan Nilekani's The Fundamentum Partnership, Better Capital and Titan Capital, according to Tracxn. During FY24, the company reported Rs 459 crore in operating revenues, compared to Rs 86.4 crore in FY23. The net profit also jumped to Rs 92 crore from Rs 3.7 crore reported FY23.