Fact Check: Deepfake shows news anchor Amish Devgan 'endorsing' casino gaming app

Hyderabad: A video of Hindi news television anchor Amish Devgan, who works for the media outlet News 18, is in circulation on social media. It supposedly shows Devgan reporting on a casino gaming app called 11Winner.

The graphic text overlayed at the bottom of the video reads, “300,000,000 INR is the jackpot won by a Mumbai native using a mobile app. (translated from Hindi)” Devgan repeats the same and adds that a person named Mayakala will explain how money can be earned on the gaming application. Following this, an audio of a lady appears narrating the story of a person named Vinod Shinde, who bought a sports car and a two-storey house from his winnings on the app.

A Facebook page, Householder Sylvana, posted the video on Facebook. The post also carried a link to 11Winner - Casino, Patti, Rummy, Cricket, gaming app on the Google Play store.

Fact Check

NewsMeter verified that Devgan has never reported on the benefits of casino gaming applications. The video is a deepfake generated using voice cloning AI (Artificial Intelligence) software.

We noticed the off-syncing between the audio and the lips movement, which gave us the cue that the video could be a deep fake. We then checked the social media accounts (X account, Facebook account and Instagram) of Devgan and also the accounts of News 18 (X account, Facebook account and Instagram) but did not find any posts or articles promoting the app in the claim.

We scrolled through the News18 YouTube channel and found a video of Devgan’s show, Aar Paar with Amish Devgan, published by the channel on January 4, 2024. It shows the anchor clad in the same suit, and we also noticed that his gestures in the initial 0.12 seconds of the video are identical to the viral video.

The video shows him speaking on the alleged corruption by the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi.

Here is the comparison of the keyframes from the original and viral video showing similar gestures.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video of the Amish Devgan casino gaming application is a deepfake.

NewsMeter has published a detailed report on how AI-generated deepfake videos of famous personalities ‘endorsing’ betting apps and fraud investments are being created and used on social media platforms to dupe people. This report gives a brief insight into the deepfake videos of Ratan Tata, Nirmala Sitharaman, Shah Rukh Khan and Virat Kohli.