Lok Sabha clears Bill that bans actual cash gaming

The Lok Sabha handed The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, by a voice vote on Wednesday (August 20, 2025). The Bill seeks “to prohibit the offering, operation, facilitation, advertisement, promotion and participation in online money games”, concentrating on corporations that provide fantasy sports activities and card video games the place customers can deposit and danger cash. 

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Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla urged MPs to unite across the Bill and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw referred to cross-party assist for the objective of the proposed legislation. “This is a good Bill. We are seeing suicides and families getting destroyed every day [due to these platforms] … Bringing such a Bill is in the national interest,” Mr. Birla stated.

“[T]he lack of a coherent and enabling legal framework has hindered the sector’s structured development and the promotion of responsible gaming practices, requiring urgent policy intervention and support mechanisms,” the Bill’s introduction stated. The Bill supplies for the creation of an authority that can promote e-sports, which the federal government is eager to develop as a artistic and leisure trade.

“[T]he parallel proliferation of online money games accessible through mobile phones, computers and the internet, and offering monetary returns against user deposits has led to serious social, financial, psychological and public health harms, particularly among young individuals and economically disadvantaged groups,” it added.

“Online money games have become a matter of great concern in our society,” Mr. Vaishnaw stated, whereas shifting the Bill in Parliament. “Many people get addicted, lifetime savings evaporate in games, and with the algorithms in use, there may be untold levels of fraud and cheating,” he added.

The Bill was not beforehand launched in draft kind for session. Mr. Vaishnaw advised reporters that it didn’t make sense to open a prohibition legislation up for session and identified that the federal government had been participating with the actual cash gaming trade for years. “There is political unanimity on the problem of online money gaming,” he stated.

“A political call had to be taken on what had to be done,” Union IT Secretary S. Krishnan advised The Hindu. “The industry has been saying that they wanted clarity on how they should be regulated… So that clarity has been provided.” 

The Bill might face fierce pushback from the trade, which has to this point not commented publicly. “If passed in its current form, the Bill is likely to face a constitutional challenge on grounds of trade restriction and legislative competence,” Vidushpat Singhania, managing companion at Krida Legal, stated. Mr. Singhania, who specialises in gaming legislation, stated that the Bill “has come as a shock to an industry that has sought central regulation through a dedicated authority.”

Mr. Vaishnaw stated that legal professionals concerned within the Bill’s drafting had expressed confidence that it might stand up to a courtroom problem.