Betting on Goodwill, or the Story Behind 1win Indian Charity Tour
The blue trucks rolled into the village just as the sun was setting below the horizon, their speakers blaring Bollywood music and cricket commentary. Kids dropped evening games and ran after them, shouting and laughing, while their parents emerged from homes and shops to see what all the fuss was about. Within an hour, the dusty square where local boys usually played cricket with tennis balls had transformed into an open-air stadium. A massive screen flickered to life, broadcasting the IPL match in clarity. For many villagers, this was their first time watching cricket on anything larger than a cracked phone screen passed around between friends.
Throughout May 2025, these trucks were making their way from Mumbai to New Delhi, turning forgotten villages and highway towns into celebration zones. Each stop meant free cricket under the stars, no tickets required, no questions asked. Just hundreds of people gathered together, cheering for their teams as if they were sitting in Eden Gardens itself.
The trucks belonged to 1win, a company that profits from people wagering on sports. If that seems like a contradiction, well, welcome to the complicated world of India's gambling industry.
Anyone who's followed industry companies knows their playbook. India is a country still scarred by match-fixing scandals, where countless young men have emptied their bank accounts chasing IPL predictions. Yet here was 1win, distributing solar lamps in slums and organizing free cricket screenings like some kind of charity NGO.
According to their own numbers, 1win's charitable programs reached 30,000 people globally last year. In India specifically, they claim to have provided solar lamps to over 1,000 Dharavi residents, organized Holi celebrations complete with free colors and sweets and brought cricket to remote communities. Their tagline for all this? "We care, we share."
The help these programs provide is undeniably real. Mothers in Dharavi now have light for their children to study after sunset. Families feel safer navigating dark alleys at night. Rural cricket fans experienced the thrill of watching their heroes on the big screen. These are tangible improvements to difficult lives. But everything has its flipside.
As a global broker, 1win operates under the Curaçao license, which doesn’t quite integrate the brand into India’s iGaming market. Companies like 1win, registered in offshore zones, allow Indian customers to access their services through regulatoin. Traditional advertising channels are not fully accessible for them. Television commercials and highway billboards are challenging tools, too.
So they found another way in social media and direct contact with the end users.
When Bollywood stars Gurmeet Choudhary and Nia Sharma appeared in Dharavi to distribute solar lamps, videographers and photographers captured every moment. TV actress Surbhi Jyoti didn't randomly encounter the IPL roadshow; her participation was carefully choreographed. Influencer Vishal Pandey's enthusiastic posts about the cricket screenings were part of the plan. Every charitable act was documented, edited, and shared across social media platforms, where content is less regulated compared to traditional betting advertising.
The timing reveals the strategy. March brought Holi celebrations to build early goodwill. April saw the Dharavi lamp distribution, generating positive press just before cricket season. May's IPL roadshow coincided perfectly with peak betting season, when cricket fever grips the nation and millions of rupees flow through betting apps. Rather than being seen as the platform profiting from every lost bet, 1win positioned itself as the company bringing joy to the masses.
The footage from these events tells its own story: influencers and the locals laughing as they throw colored powder. Families gathered around new solar lamps. Crowds erupting as their team scores on the big screen. This content spreads organically through WhatsApp groups and Instagram stories, carrying the brand into millions of homes without triggering the usual backlash against gambling companies.
The use of celebrities was carefully thought out. "Light is a tool for living longer," Choudhary told reporters in Dharavi, a beautiful quote that sidesteps any mention of how these tools were funded. "Cricket is more than a game, it's a bond," Pandey declared at the roadshow, omitting that 1win's entire business model revolves around risks.
What makes this particularly clever is that 1win operates outside India's mandatory corporate social responsibility laws. Since 2014, India has required large companies to spend on social causes, but 1win doesn't qualify because technically they're not an Indian company. Their charity work is entirely voluntary, which reveals everything about their long-term intentions.
They're purchasing legitimacy one solar lamp at a time. Building grassroots support in communities where personal recommendations still carry more weight than online reviews. Creating positive memories among people who may never gamble but will tell their neighbors about the company that brought light to their street or cricket to their village.
New Initiative: “Take It or Double and Donate”
In 2025, 1win also launched the viral “take it or double and donate” trend in India and turned it into a good cause. Every time the residents of Delhi chose to “double,” 1win added its own contribution. The result was ?600,000 in donations sent to a local NGO to help people from low-income families and those battling cancer.
This formula isn't unique to India. 1win has deployed similar strategies in Nigeria, Ghana, Argentina and other markets where online gambling is booming. The template remains consistent: identify local needs, deliver solutions with maximum visibility, document everything, and let social media do the rest.
For recipients of this charity, the corporate calculations behind it are irrelevant. A family living without electricity in Dharavi doesn't question the motivations of whoever provides them with light. A cricket enthusiast in rural Rajasthan isn't going to analyze why a betting company is screening matches for free. They're simply grateful for the help.
But understanding the bigger picture matters. The gambling industry naturally raises questions about the balance between entertainment, risk, and responsibility. 1win’s charity programs show how funds generated by its core business can be redirected to create meaningful social impact. The charity is real, and so is its connection to the company’s broader operations.
The strategy appears to be working. Communities that received help genuinely appreciate 1win now. They spread positive stories about the brand. Some might even have visited the website, curious about this generous company. In a country where gambling regulations remain inconsistent and enforcement is sporadic, these CSR initiatives serve as a form of insurance. It's politically difficult to ban a company seen as helping the poor. Cracking down on the organization that brought light to Dharavi would be a public relations nightmare.
Whether this approach succeeds long-term remains uncertain. Other gambling companies are already copying these tactics. The real test will be whether Indian regulators recognize these initiatives for what they are or whether gambling companies successfully embed themselves into India's social fabric before comprehensive regulations arrive.
A young boy named Rahul watched that cricket match in his village, mesmerized by seeing his heroes on the big screen. He doesn't understand that 1win profits from cricket betting. He knows nothing about gambling addiction or regulatory gray areas. He only remembers the magical night when professional cricket came to his village, when his entire community gathered under the stars to cheer together.
That innocence is the entire point. 1win is betting that when Rahul grows up, he'll remember them as the company that brought cricket to his doorstep, not as a betting platform.
The convoy has moved on, seeking new villages to visit, new communities to charm, new stories to create. The solar lamps continue glowing in Dharavi's narrow lanes. The Holi colors have long since washed away, but photographs remain on social media. And 1win's name stays attached to these moments of genuine happiness, these real improvements in challenging lives.
