{"id":23038,"date":"2021-09-28T12:46:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=23038"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:16:55","slug":"india-kerala-high-court-rejects-online-rummy-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-kerala-high-court-rejects-online-rummy-ban","title":{"rendered":"India: Kerala High Court rejects online rummy ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Kerala High Court has struck down the bill that would have banned online rummy in the state following a petition brought by gaming operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

India.- A\u00a0proposed ban on online<\/strong>\u00a0rummy in the state of Kerala has been\u00a0struck down by the Kerala High Court<\/strong>, which ruled that rummy is a skill-based game and cannot be prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took a similar decision as that taken by the\u00a0Madras High Court<\/a>, which struck down a bill that would have banned online gambling in Tamil Nadu after a petition brought by online operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case, the Madras High Court\u00a0<\/strong>ruled the bill was excessive and disproportionate to the object it sought to achieve although it stated the\u00a0legislature could enact new legislation<\/strong>\u00a0to regulate online games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India’s Supreme Court has previously ruled that\u00a0skill-based gaming is allowed by law<\/strong>, even though there is no incorporated administrative structure with individual states answerable for gambling policy.\u00a0As a result, the situation of skill-based games continues to face legal difficulties around the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Sayta, a gaming lawyer<\/strong>\u00a0said: “The Kerala High Court judgment once again reaffirms that games of skill like rummy cannot be prohibited by the state government, especially by a mere notification, in the absence of a proper legislative framework.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, the state government of\u00a0Kerala took the decision to ban online rummy<\/a>\u00a0after the Kerala High Court directed the government to make a decision on\u00a0whether to include online gambling and betting\u00a0<\/strong>within the purview of the\u00a0Kerala Gaming Act<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state of Karnataka also seeks to ban online gambling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Karnataka<\/a>\u00a0could be the next state in India to amend its legislation in an attempt to\u00a0ban online gambling<\/strong>. The Karnataka legislative assembly has passed a bill to amend its Karnataka Police Act 1963.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revised law provides for three years\u2019 imprisonment instead of one year for gambling<\/strong>, and a fine of up to RS100,000. The law only excludes betting on horse races from the scope of gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home Minister Araga Jnanendra<\/strong> said the amendment is necessary as 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

According to the Indian Express, Araga Jnanendra said: \u201cThere is a lot of gambling happening using electronic devices and this has to be controlled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bill aims to strengthen provisions of the Karnataka Police Act to make gambling a cognisable and non-bailable offence<\/strong> and include the use of cyberspace including computer resources or any communication device as defined in the Information Technology Act, 2000.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kerala High Court has struck down the bill that would have banned online rummy in the state following a petition brought by gaming operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":23044,"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 Kerala High Court has invalidated a state-level ban on online rummy, affirming its status as a skill-based game, consistent with prior rulings by the Madras High Court and India's Supreme Court. Concurrently, the state of Karnataka is advancing legislation to prohibit online gambling, signaling continued regulatory divergence across Indian states regarding iGaming verticals.","focusai_entities":"Kerala High Court, Madras High Court, India\u2019s Supreme Court, Jay Sayta, Karnataka legislative assembly, Araga Jnanendra, Indian Express","focusai_location":"India, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Dharwad","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), affiliate_publisher (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Karnataka Ban Impact","query":"What specific provisions of the proposed Karnataka Police Act amendment differentiate it from the Kerala and Madras High Court rulings on skill-based games, and what are the potential legal challenges?"},{"label":"Pan-India Regulatory Outlook","query":"How might the lack of a unified administrative structure for gambling policy in India impact the long-term regulatory compliance and B2C licensing landscape for skill-based gaming verticals across different states?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,158,16334],"tags":[23911,4138],"class_list":["post-23038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038","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=23038"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23060,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038\/revisions\/23060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}