New Delhi (ABC Live): When the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 received Presidential assent, it did more than complete a legislative formality. Instead, it redrew the legal boundaries of India’s digital economy. Until that moment, policymakers debated online gaming largely as a policy issue. Now, however, Parliament has converted that debate into binding criminal law. As a result, the State has fundamentally changed how it addresses digital risk, innovation, and harm.

At its core, the Act does two things at once. On the one hand, it promotes e-sports and non-monetised social gaming. On the other, it prohibits all online games involving monetary stakes—regardless of whether skill or chance determines the outcome. Consequently, India’s regulatory philosophy shifts away from harm-reduction and toward outright prohibition.

Therefore, this explainer sets out what the Act does in practice, clause by clause, and explains why its structure raises serious constitutional, economic, and governance concerns.

1. A National Law With Extra-Territorial Reach

To begin with, the Act applies across the whole of India. Moreover, it covers online gaming services that operate from outside India as long as users can access them within Indian territory. In effect, digital presence—not physical location—triggers jurisdiction.

However, offshore platforms remain difficult to police in real terms. As a result, enforcement agencies will likely focus on domestic intermediaries. Banks, payment gateways, advertisers, and users will therefore bear the immediate compliance burden. Consequently, enforcement pressure shifts inward even when foreign operators run the underlying service.

2. The Most Defining Shift: Skill No Longer Matters

Most importantly, the Act redefines what counts as an “online money game.”
Any online game involving payment or monetary expectation now falls within this category—regardless of whether skill or chance decides the outcome.

Earlier, courts consistently protected skill-based games from gambling bans. However, Parliament has now removed that distinction by statute. As a result, the traditional legal shield around skill-based gaming disappears by design.

Parliament clearly holds the power to redefine statutory categories. Constitutionally, however, such redefinition must still satisfy equality, proportionality, and reasonableness. Notably, the Act does not explain why a chess tournament with an entry fee should face the same treatment as speculative betting. Instead, it relies almost entirely on precaution.

3. What the Act Encourages—and What It Forbids

As a consequence of this design, the Act draws a sharp line within the gaming ecosystem.

Encouraged

• E-sports, which the Act now recognises as legitimate competitive sport

• Online social and educational games, as long as they involve no stakes

• Policy-driven support through training academies, incentives, and research programmes

Prohibited

• All online money games, without exception

• Any advertisement, promotion, or endorsement connected to such games

• Financial transactions that enable participation, including payment gateway services

Unlike licensing regimes, this framework leaves no room for conditional legality. Therefore, money involvement alone determines illegality.

4. Prohibition as Policy, Not Regulation

Instead of licensing or consumer safeguards, the Act relies on absolute prohibition. Notably, the statute omits:

• Loss-limit rules

• Age-verification systems

• Algorithmic transparency requirements

• Harm-minimisation or self-exclusion tools

Accordingly, the Act assumes that regulation cannot work. For this reason, lawmakers treat prohibition not as a last resort, but as the primary policy response to digital gaming risks.

5. Criminal Law at the Centre of Digital Governance

Once the Act comes into force, its consequences become severe. Specifically:

• Offering or facilitating online money games attracts imprisonment of up to five years

• The law classifies certain offences as cognizable and non-bailable

• Banks and payment intermediaries face direct criminal exposure

• Repeat violations trigger mandatory minimum sentences

As a result, the Act places digital gaming squarely within the criminal justice system. Previously, regulators managed this sector through civil or administrative tools. Now, the State governs it through coercive criminal process.

As ABC Live has explained earlier in its analysis of procedural consequences under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), cognizable and non-bailable classifications sharply alter arrest standards, bail discretion, and investigative leverage. Therefore, enforcement intensity rises dramatically.
👉 https://abclive.in/2025/11/28/bnss-section-223/

6. Search, Arrest, and Digital Intrusion Powers

In addition, the Act authorises officers to search and arrest without a warrant. Moreover, it allows entry into both physical locations and virtual digital spaces. Importantly, it overrides ordinary procedural safeguards.

Consequently, enforcement agencies can treat digital platforms like physical crime scenes. While lawmakers intended this move to strengthen deterrence, it also raises the risk of overreach, especially when authorities dispute a game’s legal classification.

7. A Powerful Authority With Limited Safeguards

Furthermore, the Act empowers a central Authority to classify games, act on complaints, and issue binding directions. However, the statute does not require judicial members. Nor does it create a dedicated appellate tribunal. Additionally, it does not impose detailed reasoning standards for classification decisions.

Instead, the Act defers many safeguards to future rule-making. As a result, the executive branch holds significant discretion at the outset.

8. Blocking Powers Beyond Existing IT Law

The Act also authorises authorities to block online gaming content despite existing IT Act safeguards. Therefore, the law creates a parallel digital control mechanism.

Consequently, three risks increase:

• Over-blocking

• Reduced transparency

• Limited judicial oversight

9. Federal Balance: States Step Back, Union Steps In

Traditionally, State legislatures regulate betting and gambling. However, by framing online gaming as a digital and cross-border security issue, the Union recentralises control.

As a result, States lose room to adopt harm-reduction or controlled regulatory models. Ultimately, this shift may trigger federal friction once enforcement begins.

10. What This Means Going Forward

Taken together, the Act signals a broader shift in India’s digital governance strategy. Specifically, it reflects:

• Precaution over proportionality

• Criminal law over economic regulation

• Centralised discretion over cooperative federalism

Ultimately, this law extends beyond gaming. Rather, it reveals how the State increasingly responds to digital risk—by eliminating entire activity categories instead of regulating their design.

ABC Live Editorial Note

This explainer examines the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 as enacted law, not legislative intent.

Accordingly, ABC Live focuses on structural design, constitutional implications, and governance outcomes following Presidential assent.

Importantly, this analysis does not judge the morality of gaming or gambling. Instead, it evaluates how the State regulates digital risk—specifically through a shift from differentiated regulation to absolute prohibition enforced by criminal law.

Where concerns arise, they relate to proportionality, due process, federal balance, and regulatory accountability.

ABC Live will update this analysis as rules emerge, enforcement patterns develop, and constitutional courts begin scrutiny.

ABC Live Takeaway

India has chosen prohibition as its primary response to online money gaming.Consequently, courts, markets, and criminal procedure—not policy seminars—will now test whether this approach protects users or drives risk underground.

Verified source text (Lok Sabha)

Official Lok Sabha PDF (as introduced):
https://sansad.in/getFile/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/Asintroduced/gaming%20eng8202025121602PM.pdf?source=legislation

(ABC Live cross-check: uploaded Bill text matches the Lok Sabha “as introduced” text.