{"id":33837,"date":"2022-09-27T09:08:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T12:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=33837"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:31:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:31:36","slug":"india-tamil-nadu-cabinet-approves-ban-on-online-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-tamil-nadu-cabinet-approves-ban-on-online-gambling","title":{"rendered":"India: Tamil Nadu cabinet approves ban on online gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The ordinance will now go to the state&#8217;s governor for approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>India.- The state parliament of Tamil Nadu has approved a&nbsp;<strong>ban on online gambling<\/strong>. Only the governor&#8217;s approval remains for the ordinance to come into effect. The ordinance was drafted after&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-tamil-nadu-expected-to-restrict-online-gambling\" target=\"_blank\">a committee set up by chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin<\/a>&nbsp;to investigate the impact of online games recommended a ban or at least limits on the activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In February last year,&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-tamil-nadu-to-pass-bill-confirming-online-gambling-ban\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam<\/a>&nbsp;introduced laws that punished online gambling with up to two years in prison or a fine of up to Rs10,000 (US$ 137.15). However, in August 2021,&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-madras-court-strikes-down-online-gambling-ban\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Madras High Court<\/a>&nbsp;overturned the legislation after online operators filed a petition. The Tamil Nadu government went to the High Court in December to challenge that decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government argued that teenagers and adults were losing their entire earnings and savings through online betting. Authorities also stated that though rummy might be a game of skill, the game using stakes will become gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, the state of&nbsp;<strong>Telangana&nbsp;<\/strong>is rethinking its&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-telangana-rethinks-online-gambling-ban\" target=\"_blank\">2017 ban on all forms of gambling<\/a>. It introduced the ban after reports of gambling addiction leading to suicides and bankruptcy but has found it led to players being targeted by illegal offshore sites outside of government control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To date, apart from the Supreme Court\u2019s precedent on skill-based gambling, there is no federal statute to govern India\u2019s gambling industry, with each state taking its own stance on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">India: panel recommends new regulator for online skill games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A panel set up by prime minister&nbsp;<strong>Narendra Modi<\/strong>&nbsp;has concluded that India should establish a regulatory body for online skill games. The regulator would classify which online games as based on skill or chance, implement rules to block prohibited formats and enforce stricter gambling regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Reuters, the report recommends that a separate law should be enacted<strong>&nbsp;to regulate online gaming as a \u201clong-term measure\u201d<\/strong>. In the interim, IT law could be used to regulate the industry until a new law is enacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report also suggests&nbsp;<strong>India\u2019s IT ministry act as the central ministry for online gaming, except for e-sports and games of chance<\/strong>&nbsp;and adds that any online gaming platform offering real money online games to Indian users should have a legal entity incorporated under Indian law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IT ministry will finalise the report after receiving further comments from panellists, including the heads of the finance and sports ministries. It will be then sent to the Cabinet Secretariat for approval, although there is no timeline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ordinance will now go to the state&#8217;s governor for approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":19174,"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 state parliament of Tamil Nadu has approved a ban on online gambling, pending gubernatorial assent, following a prior ban being overturned by the Madras High Court. Concurrently, the state of Telangana is re-evaluating its 2017 gambling ban due to the proliferation of illegal offshore operators. At the federal level, a panel initiated by Prime Minister Modi recommends establishing a new regulatory body and enacting a dedicated law for online skill games, designating the IT ministry as the central authority and requiring local incorporation for operators.","focusai_entities":"Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin, O Panneerselvam, Narendra Modi, Madras High Court, Supreme Court, Reuters, IT ministry, finance ministry, sports ministry, Cabinet Secretariat","focusai_location":"India, Tamil Nadu, Telangana","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.97), operator_casino (0.95), affiliate_publisher (0.75), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (0.98), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Federal Framework Impact","query":"What specific provisions within the proposed federal regulatory framework are expected to address the current fragmentation of state-level iGaming legislation, particularly concerning licensing and operational compliance for B2C operators?"},{"label":"Skill vs. Chance Classification","query":"How will the recommended federal regulator establish a definitive and legally robust classification methodology for online skill games versus games of chance, and what implications will this have for existing gaming verticals?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[23911,4138],"class_list":["post-33837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33837","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=33837"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33854,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33837\/revisions\/33854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}