{"id":23334,"date":"2021-10-06T13:19:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T16:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=23334"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:01:19","slug":"india-ficci-criticises-karnataka-ban-on-online-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-ficci-criticises-karnataka-ban-on-online-gambling","title":{"rendered":"India: FICCI criticises Karnataka ban on online gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has expressed their disagreement with the banning of online gambling in the state of Karnataka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

India.- A amendment banning all forms of gambling in the state<\/a>\u00a0continues to draw criticism from the industry even as it comes into effect today. Members of FICCI have said the amendment would lead to massive loss of revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sameer Barde, convenor of the FICCI Gaming Committee,\u00a0<\/strong>noted that Karnataka is one of India’s startup hubs and that the amendment would deeply damage the industry. Dilip Chenoy, FICCI’s secretary general<\/strong>, has said he hopes authorities will revise the amendment to the Karnataka Police Act 1963 in the light of criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week ago,\u00a0Roland Landers, AIGF CEO<\/strong>, who is also\u00a0a member of FICCI<\/a>, complained that the new law makes no distinction between online gambling and online games of skill. He argued that the latter has been a major area of development for India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Landers 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

Sanjay Agarwal<\/a>, co-founder and managing partner of\u00a0Umbrella Infocare<\/strong>, said that although online gambling could have negative consequences, \u201cthe bill must differentiate between gambling and skill-based games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

On the other hand, 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

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":"

Members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has expressed their disagreement with the banning of online gambling in the state of Karnataka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":12901,"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 Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and other industry bodies have voiced strong opposition to Karnataka's new amendment banning all forms of online gambling, effective today. Critics argue the law fails to differentiate between games of chance and skill, threatening significant revenue loss and damaging India's burgeoning online skill gaming sector, projected to reach US$3bn by 2025. Conversely, the state's Home Minister asserts the ban is crucial for law enforcement to control gambling via electronic devices.","focusai_entities":"Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI, FICCI Gaming Committee, Sameer Barde, Dilip Chenoy, Roland Landers, AIGF, Umbrella Infocare, Sanjay Agarwal, Araga Jnanendra, Indian Express","focusai_location":"India, Karnataka, Dharwad","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), product_ux (0.7), tech_data (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Skill Gaming?","query":"What specific economic and operational impacts will Karnataka's failure to distinguish between online gambling and skill games have on the broader Indian skill-gaming industry and its projected US$3bn revenue by 2025?"},{"label":"Regulatory Precedent?","query":"Could Karnataka's blanket ban, and the industry's strong opposition, set a precedent for other Indian states or influence the development of a unified national iGaming regulatory framework?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,158,16334],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-23334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-slider-home","category-south-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334","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=23334"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23340,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334\/revisions\/23340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}