Calls for Federal Regulation Heighten, to Protect india’s Online Gaming Industry
Based on current trends, the online rummy gaming industry in India is growing at an exceptional rate, as its estimated value is now pegged at $900 million. The projection is that by 2025 the industry’s value will increase to $112 billion. However, there are now calls for federal regulations over the online gaming industry in order to officially institute the legality of the activities of the gaming industry.
Rummy games are traditional and has been established as a legal game on which to place wagers, because it’s a game of skill, Yet the millions of players that have been showing interest in playing rummy cash games online include the younger population. The greater concern is that some developers of rummy gaming platforms are likewise creating versions of traditional Indian games that do not fall under the game of skills category.
When youth and mobile gaming combine and with as many as 750 million smartphones in use in India, many are concerned that the country could become a hotbed for illegal gambling activities through online games of skill platforms like rummy, poker and fantasy sports. This prompted several Indian states to impose statutes prohibiting games of skill played online.
India’s Online Gaming Industry is Calling for Federal Regulation and Oversight
The main gambling law often cited as the basis for the prohibition of casinos in India is an old law known as The Public Gaming Act of 1867. The same law also provides the legal support for the offering of rummy cash games in both offline gaming facilities and in online gaming platforms, as it specifically exclude games of skills as gambling games.
However, several Indian states have adopted statutes that simply prohibit staking money on rummy games by not including games of skills as an exceptions to their local Gambling Act. As a result, rummy gaming websites like Rummy Ho () give notice that they do not accept players from such regions.
The gambling laws in the autonomous states of Odisha and Tamil Nadu simply ban the placing of wagers on any kind of game regardless of whether it’s a game of chance or a game of skill. The language used in the prohibition is that it is illegal to expose one’s money or any valuable asset to the risks of losing them by chance.
The most recent anti-gambling statute was promulgated by the autonomous states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which expressly prohibits online gaming and online gambling within their respective territories.
As accessibility through the Intranet is a feature that allows online gambling and gaming industries to thrive in any geographical landscape, prohibition requires more than just statutes. After all,. there are now advanced technologies to use in reaching the millions of players in India. Proponents of online gaming platforms in India aim to protect the industry against negative elements, as well as to enhance the industry’s integrity and reputation as a regulated business sector.
What Proponents of India’s Online Gaming Industry are Saying
The ban on online games of skills in some states affect not only the operators of online gaming sites. The growing number of Indian states that now impose bans on games of skills, has also affected India’s game developers.
The CEO and founder of Head Digital Works, Deepak Gullapalli, believes that the state prohibitions are unconstitutional. The prohibitions encroach on their constitutional right to develop games that allow staking money on games upheld as legal by the Supreme Court of India. Head Works develops online rummy and fantasy sports games.
The Online Rummy Federation opines that it is the duty of the federal government to license the country’s growing online gaming industry. The demand comes with a reminder that in light of the continuous growth of online rummy businesses, many of the country’s top venture capitalists have provided financial backing in furthering the development of the online rummy industry.