“End the Gamble: BJP Leader Vijay Goel Advocates for a Ban on Real Money Gaming”

A stock image of former Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Goel, displaying a sign that reads ‘Save our Youth from Online Gaming Ban or Regulate’ at the Parliament grounds.
| Photo Credit: ANI

Platforms that offer real money gaming should be prohibited, not merely regulated, as they are inherently “corrupt,” as asserted by Vijay Goel, a prominent BJP figure and former Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Sports, and Youth Affairs, who has launched a campaign against such activities.

According to Mr. Goel in an interview with The Hindu on Thursday (January 2, 2024), online gaming equates to online gambling. “Individuals are facing financial ruin,” he remarked.

In recent months, Mr. Goel has dispatched letters regarding the topic to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and other officials. His initiative extends beyond political circles as he has also taken out advertisements in newspapers, seeking public backing. Throughout this endeavor, Mr. Goel — who remains engaged with the BJP even after his Rajya Sabha term ended in 2020 — has emerged as the most outspoken advocate of his party regarding the perils of online gaming.

‘Online gambling’

His focus is not solely on the foreign betting applications operating entirely unlawfully. Instead, his opposition encompasses all real money gaming platforms that accept substantial bets and pose considerable risk to users. (Video games do not fall within Mr. Goel’s scope of concern, he clarified.)

“There is no distinction between online gaming and online gambling,” Mr. Goel emphasized. As soon as he initiated his campaign last November, two real money gaming associations reached out to him, he noted, sharing their emails in search of meetings. In the ensuing discussions, these industry groups initially seemed to support Mr. Goel’s stance. However, he later discovered the actual activities of their member companies.

High financial risk

Real money gaming companies permit participants to engage in “games of skill” for substantial rewards, which is lawful in India. This development follows a series of judicial rulings that excluded games like rummy and poker from the constitutional definition of the term “gambling,” creating challenges for the States in prohibiting them. Efforts to abolish such games by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, for example, have been stymied by successful legal challenges.

The essence of the legal justification put forth by real money gaming organizations is that these games necessitate and reward skill and therefore should not be categorized alongside purely chance-based games, such as lotteries. Mr. Goel dismissed this rationale, pointing out that the “financial risks” indicated by these firms in their advertisements demonstrates that “the nature of these games is fundamentally flawed.”

Addictive pattern

Mr. Goel recalled his successful campaign against lotteries three decades prior. The Delhi State lottery used to conduct what was termed a “single digit lottery,” where the chances of winning a certain sum of money were significantly higher than in multi-digit lotteries, which had negligible odds, leading to a lower addiction potential. “I delivered speeches in schools and JJ clusters (slums and impoverished neighborhoods) opposing these lotteries,” he remarked. He subsequently raised the issue with Members of Parliament, culminating in an ordinance from then-Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral in 1997 that enabled States to prohibit single-digit lotteries, a measure that was promptly enacted by Delhi.

A comparable pattern — of individuals suffering major financial losses in a compulsive manner — is now becoming evident within the “online gaming” sector, Mr. Goel noted. “I inquired about the largest size of their bets, and they said ₹10,000,” he recounted from a meeting with one of the real money gaming federations.

‘Regulation not enough’

“Regulation will not resolve an issue that has a fundamentally corrupt character. These applications must be banned,” he asserted. “Regulatory measures can only address unfair commercial practices — and I’m not claiming there are any in this sector — but these games are inherently harmful,” he continued, pointing to the wave of suicides in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu attributed to significant financial losses in real money gaming applications.

In 2023, the central government published the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, mandating real money gaming firms to participate in a self-regulatory body and adhere to other regulations. However, Mr. Goel is advocating for more decisive measures against these companies. “The youth of this nation are becoming ensnared and heading towards demise,” he expressed in a November correspondence addressed to Mr. Vaishnaw.

During the anti-lottery movement, Mr. Goel successfully rallied 162 Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to endorse a petition in support of his initiative. Ahead of the approaching parliamentary session, he intends to engage MPs once more for a petition opposing real money gaming.

“Even back during the lottery period, it was my own party in power, so people questioned my motives,” he stated. “Ultimately, we garnered sufficient public support against single digit lotteries. I aspire to replicate this success with public backing [against real money gaming] this year.”