-Aadya Ananta & Bonsika Das

The passage of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 in both the houses of Parliament has reignited a nationwide debate on how India should treat its fast-growing gaming industry. The legislation, which prohibits online money games involving staking or winning real money, while creating a framework for esports and casual gaming, seeks to strike a balance between safeguarding citizens and promoting digital innovation. Yet, it has also raised constitutional, economic, and social questions that will likely play out in courts, policy circles, and the marketplace. 

This Bill is less about gaming and more about governance. The real gamble lies in whether India is regulating an industry of the future or driving it underground. 

The case for the Bill

Supporters of the law argue that it fills a glaring regulatory vacuum. For years, India’s online gaming industry expanded rapidly under a patchwork of state laws and judicial rulings. Games that were in substance gambling often marketed themselves as “games of skill,” taking advantage of grey areas in regulation. For example, the Enforcement Directorate discovered that the Mahadev betting syndicate, one of the biggest betting app scams in India, operated roughly thirty call centers in Indian cities, where they created phony identification documents, onboarded users, and laundered money through hawala networks. 

The consequences, according to the Bill’s backers, have been significant. Studies and enforcement records point to compulsive use, addiction, and financial harm. Police investigations have linked dozens of suicides to online rummy losses. Thirty-two suicides were linked to compulsive online rummy losses in thirty-one months, according to police records in Karnataka alone. In order to cover their rapidly increasing losses, players have taken out loans from predatory instant-loan apps, pushing families all over India into debt traps. Even the World Health Organization has recognized “gaming disorder” as a mental health condition in the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases, or ICD.

Proponents also argued that self-regulation has failed. Amendments to the IT Rules in 2023 had introduced industry-led Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs) to certify permissible games, with expectations of voluntary features like age-gating and self-exclusion. However, compliance remained uneven. Many banned games resurfaced under new branding, while advertising and payment channels continued largely unimpeded.

By banning real-money games outright, the new Bill establishes a clear baseline: any game involving monetary stakes falls outside the scope of legitimate play. Enforcement responsibilities are widened to include not just operators, but also app stores, payment intermediaries, advertisers, and influencers. At the same time, the law sets up an Online Gaming Authority to license esports, educational titles, and casual games, giving India’s growing esports ecosystem a degree of legitimacy and stability.

Historical Backdrop 

India’s gaming policy is not a new development, it can be traced back to the colonial period in the Public Gambling Act of 1867, which criminalized common gaming houses but excluded “games of skill” from its purview. This confusion influenced decades of judicial analysis. The Supreme Court and numerous High Courts consistently drew a distinction between “games of skill” and “games of chance,” permitting the former to thrive legally. Games like rummy and poker successfully argued for skill elements, though courts often differed on where the threshold lay.

Over the last few years, a clutch of states including Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh made a bid for blanket prohibitions on online rummy and poker in the interests of public health and addiction. These were, however, set aside by High Courts on the grounds of being disproportionate curbs on trade and individual freedom. The central government’s new law, hence, is not so much about controlling technology rather it can be seen as about rewriting a one-and-a-half-century-old legal dispensation, superseding state-level battles and judicial precedents in one go. But the question still lies – Is Ban the only solution? Is this the only way forward? 

Comparative International Angle 

Globally governments have experimented with models that balance protection, freedom and revenue. Countries like the United Kingdom and Singapore have adapted robust models, while the United Kingdom focuses on licensing regimes, putting spending caps, deposit limits and strict codes on advertising, Singapore combines tight licensing with harsh penalties, even jail time in some cases to monitor and mitigate harm safeguarding its people rather than constructing bans. 

The United States by contrast, has a fragmented but effective system in place since 2018. Its states determine its own path in true federalism’s essence. New Jersey and Nevada, for instance, not only have brought in billions of tax revenue but also serve as test markets for new consumer protections, including betting limits, self-exclusion lists, and clear advertising standards. China is the other extreme, with nationwide curfews for children, compulsory identification checks, and rigid time quotas for play, offering a highly paternalistic stance that is more concerned with social control than with individual freedom. India’s blanket ban now positions it much nearer to the Chinese model than to liberal regulatory frameworks such as the UK or experimental systems of the US. The threat is evident: instead of decreasing harm, India risks pushing millions of players into offshore sites where neither consumer rights nor state coffers are secure.

Economic angle 

The digital gaming industry was never a marginal economy. It was and still is every bit the cornerstone of India’s digital growth narrative, exemplified by its capacity of being the title sponsor of the nation’s cricket team with a three-year deal worth Rs.358 Cr. The Indian digital gaming market was valued at Rs.33,000 Cr (US $3.7 billion) in 2023 and in FY24 (2023-24) it saw a growth of 23% with real- money gaming accounting for 86% of that revenue. During 2023 alone, the government raked in more than ₹3,000 crore in GST from real-money gaming sites. Venture capital poured in, with more than ₹23,000 crore being invested during the period 2020-2024, and some companies on the cusp of becoming unicorns. A blanket ban threatens to wreck this pipeline, sucking away investor optimism and driving capital offshore. The market was expected to more than double to approximately US$9.1 billion by 2029.

Esports, also, is at risk. India’s youth gamers are fighting on the world stage, but without monetizable platforms to call their own, Indian teams stand to lose the competition to foreign players from more robust ecosystems. It is not merely a tax loss, it is India’s loss of the opportunity to take leadership in a sunrise industry that aligns talent, entertainment, and technology.

Youth, Culture, and Careers

Gaming is no longer a niche pursuit rather it is mainstream Indian culture for millions below 30 years old. For some, professional gaming, streaming, and esports are viable professions. Almost half of ‘serious gamers’ make ₹6–12 lakh per year from competitions, sponsorships, and creating content. At the uppermost levels, the top esports players – especially in titles like Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) – can earn between ₹15 lakh and more than ₹1 crore per annum in salaries, endorsements, and tournament awards. India now has concrete trappings of this transformation. Twenty-one-year-old Beelzeboy from Nagpur captured global attention by winning the Pokémon GO World Championships 2025, taking home $20,000 (around ₹17.5 lakh)—the first Indian to win such a title.  While all this was going on, gaming teams such as S8UL Esports have turned into cultural institutions—having content studios, competing globally, and being the Indian representative at the Esports World Cup 2025. Even gamers like Jonathan Gaming (235 million+ views, millions of followers) have turned into influential figures at the nexus of youth culture and online media

But outside of competition, esports careers branch out into data analytics, management, broadcasting, and operations. Career opportunities such as performance coaches, team strategists, and community managers have arisen, fueled by analytics platforms and formal training infrastructure. No longer a niche pastime, esports has evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem providing varied professional careers.

However, this economic and cultural momentum is threatened with disruption. By treating money-related gaming as illegal instead of regulated, the government stands to lose an entire generation that views online play as no less legitimate than cricket or Bollywood. The Bill envisions gaming mostly as a social risk, yet for countless Indians it has been a means of linking people, forming identity, and making a living. Such a generational gap may have significant cultural and political impacts. Instead of opportunity, the Bill portrays their activities as liability. That message can resonate far outside the policy space, defining how young Indians understand their engagement with digital life and with national development.

The Enforcement Dilemma

Despite prohibition on paper, enforcement is still the elephant in the room. Offshore platforms can be reached using VPNs, funded using cryptocurrencies, and downloaded from app stores beyond the jurisdiction of India. Policing those does not merely require legal weapons but heavy surveillance capability.

Loading intermediaries such as Google Play, Apple, Paytm, and influencers with liability has a whiff of the OTT and IT Rules saga, where compliance became censorship. Worse still, overly enthusiastic monitoring of payments and online activity threatens to intrude on citizens’ data privacy and digital rights. Without the precision tools, a ban would easily devolve into mass surveillance—an overreach that the courts will likely not let pass.

Constitutional and Economic Critique

Critics see the law as an overreach. They contend that the government has reversed its long-standing stance of regulation and taxation, replacing it with prohibition without offering new facts or evidence. As recently as 2023, the government had amended IT Rules, reformed GST, and invited companies to consultations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Data Protection Act, signalling that the industry could build for the long term under a regulatory regime.

The abrupt shift risks undermining investor confidence in India’s digital economy. Between 2020 and 2024, more than Rs. 23,000 crore was invested in online gaming, creating over one lakh jobs. By 2025, that number was expected to double. Companies had already invested heavily in compliance systems like know-your-customer checks and anti-money laundering protocols. A blanket ban, they say, treats compliant domestic operators and rogue offshore betting platforms alike, ignoring the fact that the latter pose a greater risk to consumers and financial integrity.

From a constitutional standpoint, concerns centre on proportionality and autonomy. Indian jurisprudence requires state action to adopt the least intrusive measure to achieve its goals. Alternatives such as stricter regulation, self-exclusion tools, and parental controls have been adopted globally with some success. A blanket ban has been the most intrusive option availed.

The Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India judgment in 2017 reaffirmed that the right to privacy protects dignity and autonomy, including the freedom to choose recreational activities. Denying citizens the option of playing real-money games, some argue, encroaches upon this autonomy and may not survive constitutional scrutiny.

Finding the middle ground

The challenge, therefore, lies in reconciling two legitimate concerns: the need to protect individuals and families from the harms of addictive gaming, and the need to preserve citizens’ rights and economic opportunities in a promising industry.

Global experience shows that bans rarely eliminate demand; instead, they often push users towards unregulated offshore platforms, heightening risks of fraud and laundering while eroding tax revenues. At the same time, unchecked growth of money gaming can indeed result in significant social and economic costs.

A middle ground could involve a differentiated approach. Offshore operators, which function outside Indian jurisdiction and offer little consumer protection, could be subject to strict prohibition and enforcement. Domestic operators, especially those investing in compliance and transparency, could be regulated under a licensing regime with clear safeguards: spending caps, time limits, age verification, and mandatory self-exclusion features. Such a model would align India more closely with global best practices, from the UK’s Gambling Commission to Australia’s responsible gaming tools.

The road ahead

The new Bill undeniably marks a watershed moment for India’s digital policy. By creating an Online Gaming Authority and setting standards for esports and educational gaming, it offers clarity where once there was regulatory ambiguity. At the same time, the law’s broad prohibition on real-money games will almost certainly face judicial challenges and spark further debate on rights, proportionality, and economic impact.

Whether the law proves effective will depend on implementation. Clear definitions of what constitutes permissible gaming, coordination between central and state authorities, real-time monitoring of payment channels, and transparent decision-making by the new Authority will all be crucial.

Ultimately, the question is not whether online gaming should be regulated, it is how it should be regulated. India has an opportunity to develop a model that protects consumers, encourages innovation, and respects fundamental rights. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 is an important first step, but the true test lies in how it is refined and enforced in the years to come.