Online Gaming Bill 2025: Gaming regulation shake-up places billions in VC funding in danger; buyers to determine ‘what can be done next’

The central authorities’s ban on real-money gaming is creating challenges for enterprise capital buyers, as startups valued at almost $15 billion and having raised round $2 billion strive to determine their subsequent steps.“We’ve made huge investments and are bound to face major capital losses… at this point though the efforts are towards finding out what can be done next,” a New Delhi-based enterprise capital investor, who has backed real-money firms, was quoted as saying by ET.“Real-money gaming companies, essentially, are consumer platforms with a large user base that can be leveraged for other offerings,” the investor stated.WinZO, certainly one of India’s prime social gaming platforms, has eliminated all video games affected by the brand new Online Gaming Regulation Bill, 2025. Following this, different main gaming firms have made comparable strikes. Dream11 has ended all paid contests to function solely as a free-to-play platform, and Games24x7 has halted real-money video games on My11Circle.While Dream Sports, the mum or dad firm of India’s main fantasy sports activities app Dream11, is piloting a wealth administration product, WinZO Games is coming into the US market and introducing micro-drama content material.Dream11 has additionally knowledgeable the BCCI that it can not proceed as Team India’s title sponsor because of income losses, reported PTI.Global and home buyers like Tiger Global, Z47, Think Investments, Peak XV Partners, and Malabar Investments have backed corporations similar to Dream Sports, MPL, Games24x7, and Zupee, all of which are actually going through regulatory challenges.“These companies are going to be, not just for us, but for everyone, going to be very largely a write-off, because the business is shut effectively. They all have cash in the bank, because they made a lot of money,” Rehan Yar Khan, the managing associate of Orios Venture Partners, was quoted as saying by the Economic Times.“Since there was always a regulatory overhang over real money gaming, we took a very tiny experimental exposure. So, from the over Rs 2,000 crore that we manage, we invested only Rs 5 crore, that too across two funds in real money gaming,” he added.Nazara Technologies, the one publicly listed firm uncovered to real-money gaming, noticed its market capitalization fall by Rs 2,164.9 crore final week following the federal government’s ban.Despite the challenges, some buyers stay hopeful that the regulatory shakeout might spur innovation. “Most of the VC investors who have invested in gaming did not just come in for RMG. They believe in the long-term evolution of India’s gaming ecosystem. There are pivots and options these companies can explore, because gaming is still a very nascent industry in India,” one investor was quoted as saying by ET.Real-money video games account for almost 86 p.c of India’s gaming income. The sector generates round Rs 31,000 crore yearly, contributes Rs 20,000 crore in taxes, helps over two lakh jobs, and has drawn greater than Rs 25,000 crore in international funding.In the Fiscal Year of 2023, Dream11 posted Rs 6,580.8 crore in income and Rs 443.6 crore revenue, as cited by Tracxn, although its FY24 and FY25 outcomes are pending. Games24x7 reported Rs 2,023 crore income with a Rs 199.6 crore loss in FY23, whereas Gameskraft earned Rs 3,521.4 crore income and Rs 947.8 crore revenue in FY24, reported ET.