A report of several suicides blamed on gambling debt has spurred the Madras High Court to call for the state to ban online gambling if it can’t regulate it sufficiently.
The case brought before the courts highlights the one step forward two steps back nature of the country’s approach to regulated gambling, according to Asian Gaming Brief.
In response to the petition, the Madras court said it “hopes that appropriate, adequate and immediate measures including bringing legislation to prohibit or regulate online gambling would be taken by the government before the next hearing in order to ensure that no precious life hereinafter will be lost.”
Politicians from the Justice Party in the Tamil Nadu’s southern city of Coimbatore demonstrated against online gambling and called on the government to prevent celebrities from endorsing gaming products.
The state of Andhra Pradesh recently announced a ban on all gambling, skill-based or not, and asked the central government to block access to 132 gambling websites. The list of websites did not include Dream11, which is the main sponsor of the India Premier League cricket tournament taking place in the United Arab Emirates. The bans, a setback for the skill-based industry in India, will probably be challenged in the courts as such gaming is protected under the Indian constitution.
Multiple gaming startup companies were cited by India’s Financial Express as calling on the government for regulation, rather than turn away substantial revenue.
“It is high time that the governing bodies such as the All India Gaming Federation be invited to discuss these aspects at length to regulate the real money gaming space,” Rohan Parulekar, Co-founder, PokerNXT told Financial Express Online. “The government is only losing revenue by not regulating the industry. People can play by going to the offshore casinos or the ones in other countries, thereby taking the tax revenues that the government could earn, out of the country.”
Still, over 25 members of Social Justice Party staged a protest in front of the South Taluk office calling for a ban on Rummy Circle, MPL and Dream 11, according to India Times.
“We know only a few people who ended their lives after facing huge loss. But the number of people who are affected because of the game would be high. We don’t understand why the state government is silent even after knowing a large number of people are affected. Immediate steps should be taken to ban the apps,” said V Eswaran, youth wing secretary of MDMK.
The online gaming market in India could see revenue growth from $295 million in 2020 to $531 million by 2025 or 12.5 per cent with a user penetration of 8 per cent in 2020 and 10.2 per cent by 2025.
Governed by the Public Gambling Act 1867, online games involving real money transactions remain in a legal quagmire.
Recent directions by the Delhi and Gujarat High Courts to state governments to consider public interest litigations to regulate online gambling, allegedly operating under applicable laws, continues to spotlight online poker and other e-games such as rummy, cricket, etc. that involve real money.
There is no law specifically addressing the online versions of betting and gambling. Regions including Goa, Sikkim, Daman, and Nagaland had legalized gambling while in many other states it remains illegal for not essentially being a complete skill-based game.
The industry body AIGF, which was formed in 2016, has argued that “differing state interpretations of online skill games make it difficult to build scale for businesses. Since its inception, AIGF has been at the forefront, working with relevant policymakers to demonstrate the skill aspect of the game and also economic benefits that accrue from the online skill gaming industry,” Roland Landers, CEO, AIGF said.
Particularly during the lockdown, with people staying indoors and having a lot of idle time in hand, “more and more people indulged in online games, especially poker. Most poker websites saw a growth of about 30 to 40 per cent in India,” Pranav Bagai, CEO & Co-founder, Poker Sports League told Financial Express Online.
