Indian State to Ban Online Gambling

All states in India have the power to pass their own laws when it comes to online gambling, the country’s Union government has ruled.

And it means that Tamil Nadur governors can finally go ahead with their six-month-old Bill to ban online-gambling.

In a written note to parliament, Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Singh Thakur insisted that “Betting and Gambling come under Entry 34 of List-II in the Seven Schedule of the Constitution of India, in respect of which states have the power to legislate.”

He added: “States have enacted their laws to deal with gambling, including those which are available online, within their jurisdictions.”

The ruling was in response to the overturning of a Bill to ban online gambling passed by the Assembly in the state of Tamil Nadu earlier this month. It was overruled by the governor there, R N Ravi, who argued that states did not have the ‘legislative competence’ to ban online gambling. He also queried an aspect in the Bill which described a set of popular online games as ‘games of chance’ which were controlled by computer algorithms.

The matter of the rejected ban on online gambling Bill was brought to the Indian parliament by Tamil Nadur DMK MP S R Parthiban. He had asked for guidelines on introducing online gambling, saying he was concerned about the mental health aspects of addiction.

Thakur responded saying there was a distinction between games of skill and games of chance – the latter coming under the banner of gambling under Indian law.

The Supreme Court and many high courts in India have already ruled that there is a distinction between games of chance and games of skill (where there is application of mind). Byber law advocate N Karthikeyan explained: “Whether rummy is gambling is a question of law. Games of chance are illegal whereas games of skill are considered to be legal.”

After the ruling a delighted Parthiban declared the findings a “vindication of the Tamil Nadur’s government’s anti-online gambling stance.”

A police report last October cited 20 deaths by suicide as a result of online gambling in Tamil Nadu within a two-year period. By March that number had risen to 44, according to one government official.

The state legislative assembly had originally passed the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Billing a unanimous vote on October 19 last year. But it had been ruled unconstitutional until now.