{"id":22963,"date":"2021-09-24T12:38:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T15:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=22963"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:21:01","slug":"india-more-criticism-of-karnataka-ban-on-online-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-more-criticism-of-karnataka-ban-on-online-gambling","title":{"rendered":"India: more criticism of Karnataka ban on online gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Industry players believe the banning of online gambling in Karnataka would be a boost for illegal offshore betting apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

India.- The\u00a0Karnataka state government<\/a>‘s\u00a0decision to amend the Karnataka Police Act 1963 to ban all forms of gambling in the state continues to draw criticism from the industry. Many gaming leaders believe the bill should make a distinction between online gambling and online games of skill<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to The Week, Danish Sinha, the founder of Gamestacy,<\/strong>\u00a0said: “The industry is further expected to generate revenues of over US$3bn by 2025. This move by the Karnataka government is a clear setback to the state\u2019s reputation of being a technology hub and start-up capital.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanjay Agarwal, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Umbrella Infocare<\/strong>, said that although online gambling could have negative consequences, “the bill must differentiate between gambling and skill-based games.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sad there should be close monitoring by a regulatory authority as online sports gaming cannot be categorised under gambling as it is skill-based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days ago\u00a0Roland Landers, AIGF CEO<\/strong>, claimed the\u00a0banning of online gambling<\/a>\u00a0would damage the state\u2019s standing as a tech centre and start-up capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Landers said: \u201cIndia is the fifth-largest online gaming market globally<\/strong>, and skill-based gaming, a dawn sector, is bringing forth an expanding number of unicorns inside the country, particularly in Karnataka. Skill-based gaming couldn\u2019t be compared to gambling and prohibiting it isn\u2019t an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the sector had contributed to the Indian economy and is expected to produce revenue of over US$3bn by 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home minister Araga Jnanendra<\/strong> has said that the legal amendment is necessary because it was difficult for the police to handle gambling and betting due to the new request from a bench of the state high court at Dharwad, which has stopped the police raiding gambling dens<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ordinance amended the Tamil Nadu Gaming act of 1930, the Chennai City Police Act 1888 and the Tamil Nadu District Police Act of 1859 to make online gambling a punishable offence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online rummy and similar games now carry legal consequences<\/strong> that range from fines of Rs5,000 (US$64.45) to six months imprisonment for violators of the ban. Promotors of games and online gambling platforms could be fined Rs 10,000 (US$135) or receive up to two years in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Industry players believe the banning of online gambling in Karnataka would be a boost for illegal offshore betting apps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":22964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Karnataka state government's amendment to the Karnataka Police Act 1963, banning all forms of online gambling without distinguishing skill-based games, faces significant industry criticism. Leaders warn this move will bolster illegal offshore betting, damage the state's tech hub reputation, and impede the projected US$3bn revenue growth of India's skill-based gaming sector by 2025. The industry advocates for clear regulatory differentiation to protect legitimate businesses and economic contributions.","focusai_entities":"Danish Sinha, Gamestacy, Sanjay Agarwal, Umbrella Infocare, Roland Landers, AIGF, Araga Jnanendra, Karnataka state government","focusai_location":"India, Karnataka, Dharwad, Tamil Nadu, Chennai","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.8), product_ux (0.7), tech_data (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Skill Gaming","query":"What specific legislative amendments are industry bodies like AIGF proposing to differentiate skill-based gaming from gambling, and what is the likelihood of their adoption by the Karnataka government?"},{"label":"Offshore Market Growth","query":"How will the Karnataka ban on online gambling, without clear skill-game differentiation, quantitatively impact the market share and operational scale of illegal offshore betting applications targeting Indian consumers?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,158,16334],"tags":[229,23911,4138],"class_list":["post-22963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-slider-home","category-south-asia-news","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22963"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22984,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22963\/revisions\/22984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}