Govt is infantilising Indians with the online gaming law

If the Act applied to the ‘offline’ games, then ATP tennis tournaments, Davis Cup ties, IPL matches, and even Test cricket, each with cash rewards or trophies, would fall foul.

Representational image | Pixabay

Every republic has its obsessions. Ours reveals itself each time it decides that citizens cannot be trusted with choice. Instead of regulating, it bans. Instead of trusting, it infantilises. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 is the latest hand dealt in this tradition.

With one sweep of the legislative pen, the Act declares that whether you are playing chess on your phone or rummy at a digital table for money, or a trivia quiz for coupons, you are, in effect, no different from a gambler in a dingy den. The irony is hard to miss: a law promising “promotion” and “regulation” arrives carrying neither.

Like a dealer parcelling out cards into neat stacks, the Act divides the sprawling universe of online play into three tidy boxes. The neatness, of course, is deceptive. What is really being done is the drawing of moral boundaries: one class of games is cast out as the pariah, another elevated as the darling, and a third sterilised into harmlessness.

Online money games: Pariah

The Act defines an “online money game” in terms that are deliberately wide. It covers any online game and makes it clear that it does not matter whether the game is one of ‘skill’, one of ‘chance’, or a combination of the two. In other words, the familiar legal distinction between skill games (like chess, rummy, or fantasy sports) and games of chance (like roulette or dice) is expressly declared irrelevant for the purposes of the ban. What matters instead is what is put in by the player and what comes out. A game becomes an online money game if the player has to pay something to participate.

The payment could be in three different forms. The first is the fees charged by the organiser. The second is money, deposited into a wallet or account linked to the game. The third is ‘other stakes’, a defined term in the Act, which covers anything that can be treated as money or converted into money. This includes obvious things like credits, coins, and tokens used in online platforms. However, it also extends to “similar things”, which could potentially include skins, gems, or digital objects that a player buys using money, directly or indirectly, for use in the game.

The next part of the definition looks at the player’s expectation. A game counts as an online money game if the player participates with the hope of winning something in return. The Act sets out what can be “won” for it to become an online money game. It uses the phrase “monetary or other enrichment”, meaning the reward could be straight cash, but it could equally be a non-cash benefit that still has economic value, such as a voucher, a coupon, or a digital item that can be traded or redeemed.

Taken together, the definition is structured as a loop: If money (or anything equivalent to money) goes in, and money (or anything that enriches you) comes out, then the game is an online money game. The only explicit exception is ‘e-sports’, which the Act treats separately.

Take something as simple as an online chess tournament. Each player pays a small entry fee, and the winner receives an Amazon voucher. That modest structure completes the Act’s loop: money goes in through the fee, something of value comes out through the voucher, and the expectation of winning ties it together. Under the Act, this quiet contest of intellect is treated no differently from online roulette.

Even worse, consider a free trivia app. You pay nothing to join, but each win earns you in-game coins. These coins are not money, yet they let you unlock higher levels, enter bigger contests, or swap for discount vouchers. At no point do you spend a rupee, but the moment those free coins are reused with the hope of winning more, the Act deems it an online money game. By that logic, even a no-cost pastime that rewards players with its own play-tokens is swept into the net of gambling. It’s as absurd as calling children playing marbles for toffees, gamblers in a den.

The absurdity sharpens if one extends the Act’s logic into the physical world. Assume that the Act applies to the ‘offline’ games too. Then ATP tennis tournaments, Davis Cup ties, IPL matches, and even Test cricket, each with cash rewards or trophies, would fall foul as it does not matter if they are games of skill. That is the danger of definitions unmoored from constitutional principles.

Yet, in drafting so broadly, the Act may also have left chinks in its own armour: What if the “other stakes” are rewards that have no real-world convertibility, or the “expectation” of winning is framed differently? Definitions that stretch too far often leave gaps for creative interpretation.

E-sports: State’s darling

After casting out online money games, the Act draws a protective circle around e-sports. To qualify, a game must be part of a recognised competitive event, registered under the National Sports Governance Act, 2025, and overseen by an authority created under it. It must be organised between teams or individuals, played in multiplayer formats, and governed by clear rules.

Unlike money games, the law insists that the outcome here be determined solely by skill, physical dexterity, mental agility, or strategic thinking. Within this framework, the very same ‘value in and value out’ loop is permitted; organisers may collect participation fees framed as administrative costs and players may lawfully receive prize money tied to performance.

The decisive difference is not the mechanics, but the label. When the State calls it “e-sport”, the loop is legitimate; when it is rummy or chess, the loop becomes contraband. Isn’t this the very picture of a nanny State, indulgent so long as the children play under her gaze, but disapproving the moment they step outside?

By privileging one class of skill-based play over another, however, the Act implicitly concedes that the mechanics are not inherently harmful. Concession may well form the basis of future arguments. If skill is safe inside the e-sport box, why must it be contraband outside it?

Online social games: Sanitised middle child

Between the darling and the pariah sits the category of “online social games”. These are games where no money or “other stakes” are involved, and where players cannot expect any monetary return. A subscription fee or one-time payment for access is permitted, but only as a cost of entry and not as a stake that feeds into winnings. In this way, the law tolerates puzzles, word games, or casual mobile apps that charge for use, but strips them of any incentive structure.

The message is clear: games may entertain, but never reward. Social games are thus spared prohibition, but only by being sterilised of competition that carries value.

Courts and blanket bans on gaming

For decades, Indian courts have drawn a principled line between games of skill and games of chance. From R.M.D. Chamarbaugwala (1957) through Satyanarayana (1968) to K.R. Lakshmanan (1996), the Supreme Court held that where skill predominates, the activity is not “gambling”, but a legitimate business protected under Article 19(1)(g). These rulings became the scaffolding of Indian gaming law, repeatedly affirming three points: skill is distinct from chance, skill-based play is constitutionally protected, and legislatures cannot erase this distinction by fiat.

For more than half a century, this framework held firm. But as online play expanded, states began collapsing the categories and imposing blanket bans until the High Courts intervened, in more recent years.

In gaming, an ‘extra life’ is what lets you go on when it should have been game over. That is what the Madras High Court, in Junglee Games India Private Limited v. State of Tamil Nadu (2021), and the Karnataka High Court, in All India Gaming Federation v. State of Karnataka (2022), offered when faced with questions around blanket bans on online gaming. Both courts examined laws that sought to prohibit online games outright, without distinction between skill and chance.

The courts accepted that the State’s concern with addiction was real, as gaming, like alcohol or tobacco, can spiral into harmful behaviour. But the constitutional question was not whether regulation was needed; it was how much. Both benches concluded that a blanket ban was disproportionate: a sledgehammer masquerading as regulation where only a scalpel was needed. You do not need to kill the patient to cure the disease. Licensing, self-exclusion systems, and audit mechanisms were all available, scalpel-like alternatives.

Both courts anchored their reasoning in Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution—the freedom to practice any profession or carry on trade. Running a rummy platform, hosting tournaments, or operating a fantasy sports league is not a mere pastime; it is a recognised economic activity that generates jobs, attracts investment, and sustains livelihoods. It is important to note that a fundamental right cannot be taken away completely but can only be subject to reasonable restrictions.

The Karnataka High Court went a step beyond trade and profession. It recognised that playing skill games is also a form of ‘expression’, protected under Article 19(1)(a). For players, strategy, judgement, and decision-making are modes of self-expression not unlike playing chess or competing in e-sports. To ban such activity altogether was not just economic overreach, it was an attack on personal freedoms.

The bans were also faulted for violating Article 14. Gambling, with its inherent element of betting, has well-acknowledged social harms. But the pressing question was whether that justified stifling games where skill predominates. By lumping games of pure chance (like lotteries) with judicially recognised games of skill (like rummy or chess-based fantasy sports), the legislature created a false equivalence. This collapse of categories, the courts held, was manifestly arbitrary—and arbitrariness, being the very antithesis of reason, is itself a constitutional infirmity.

These High Court cases dealt with state amendments, but the issue of legislative competence arises equally in relation to the Act. Traditionally, states have regulated horse racing, lotteries, and casinos under Entry 34 of the list of state subjects, “betting and gambling”. Section 18 of the Act, however, asserts an overriding effect over all inconsistent state laws, effectively displacing this domain.

The Union may claim residuary power under Article 248, pointing to the digital and cross-border nature of online gaming. Yet, the ‘pith and substance’ of the Act remains “betting and gambling”, a subject constitutionally reserved for the states.

Closing wager

During America’s Prohibition in the 1920s, bartenders learned the art of disguise. With alcohol outlawed, they mixed spirits with fruit juices, soda, and bitters not merely for taste, but to hide what was really in the glass. Out of this concealment were born classics like Sidecar, the Bee’s Knees, and the Last Word. Prohibition did not kill the drink; it simply drove it underground and dressed it up in new forms.

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 carries the same irony. It is not truly about gaming, it is about trust. It tells us that the Republic mistrusts its citizens to choose; that jurisprudence can be set aside when inconvenient; that innovation can be legislated out of existence in the name of morality. The State has made its wager: that citizens will accept infantilisation in exchange for the illusion of protection.

But history mocks such wagers. The Volstead Act promised sobriety and delivered speakeasies and mafias. We know how these stories end—not with abstinence, but with underground economies and cultural improvisations. So it will be with games. Ban them, and people will not stop playing. They will invent digital speakeasies with apps disguised as puzzles, tournaments hosted offshore and accessed through VPN, and chatrooms where rummy looks like trivia.

The State may fold the table, but citizens will still find a way to play the hand.

Pratik Patnaik is a Partner at Samvad Partners. His X handle is @ChiefDissenter.

Ananya Sharma is a law student at the University of Delhi and an intern at Samvad Partners.

Siddharth Singh is a student at Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur, and an intern at Samvad Partners. His X handle is @Sidx58.

The views expressed are personal to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Samvad Partners or the institutions with which they are affiliated.

(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)