Yet, others like Kerala and Maharashtra are not so strict and offer legal lottery systems. For example, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana impose strict bans on all forms of online gambling. Meanwhile, Sikkim and Nagaland allow some skill-based games like rummy to be played for real money online.
How casinos make money
The legal gambling industry in Goa is regulated under the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act, 1976, which was later amended to allow casinos in five-star hotels and riverboats. These casinos offer live table games like blackjack, baccarat, poker, and roulette. The offshore casinos are anchored in the Mandovi River and attract both domestic and foreign tourists. If the betting is on games of chance, then it would attract the prohibitions under the State Gaming Laws.
This is mostly due to social concerns, religious opposition, and fears of addiction. Companies started taking licenses from Nagaland to operate legally across India. However, due to newer state-level bans in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, many operators faced restrictions. Still, Nagaland remains one of the few Indian states that offers a structured legal framework for online gaming businesses.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, represents one of India’s most significant digital economy regulatory changes. While justified by social protection and security concerns, the legislation eliminates a multi-billion dollar industry and hundreds of thousands of jobs. The law’s broad approach conflicts with decades of court precedents protecting skill-based games, creating an uncertain regulatory environment that may face future legal challenges. In October 2022, the CCPA issued notices to six offshore betting and gambling websites that were advertising themselves through surrogate advertisements.
Is Gambling Legal In India? Here’s all you Need to Know
Sikkim has a constitutional right under the seventh schedule allowing it to create its own laws for all kinds of gambling and is thereby permitted not to follow the Central Lotteries Act. The state governments have the right to authorize lotteries within the jurisdiction and also lay down the tax clauses for the same, as per the lotteries regulation act of 1998. For example when a person plays poker online in India, tedious may be automatically deducted if they win, from their winnings. A few states like Goa, Sikkim, and Daman have embraced casinos as part of tourism and economy. Meanwhile, others like Tamil Nadu and Telangana have taken a strict moral stand. The result is that gambling laws in India are still confusing and inconsistent across states.
For lotteries, only some states permit it under specific conditions, please refer to the corresponding row below on “Lotteries”. By 2022 online gambling will only be officially legal in the states of Goa, Daman, and Sikkim. Sikkim also permits an online lottery, which takes bets from players throughout India.
by Expert Lawyer
Younger men aged between 18 and 24 were most likely to gamble with illegal websites. The report also stated that those with a Problem Gambling Severity Index of eight or higher would gamble the most with these operators. The final group, which tied in with the awareness concern, was identified as “accidental tourists”.
- It allows both physical and online casinos under the Sikkim Casino (Control & Tax) Act, 2002 and the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Act, 2008.
- Most of the State Gaming Laws prescribe either a monetary fine and/or imprisonment for the offences mentioned in them.
- This has created an uneven and often confusing legal landscape for online gamblers and operators.
- The coming weeks, marked by legal hearings, stakeholder consultations, and the release of official rules, will determine the extent to which this sweeping law’s effects will be far-reaching.
The focus is to help readers understand where they can gamble legally, what restrictions exist, and what they need https://wdgc2022.com/ to be careful about. Betting on horse races has been judicially recognised as a game of skill and many State Gaming Laws also expressly exclude it from their prohibitions – subject to certain conditions. Since most of the governing statutes are pre-internet, there is no specific regulator or statutory language in most State Gaming Laws for online betting on horse races. Casino games are regulated by state-level laws in India and their digital forms also fall within the ambit of the same laws. Casino games are games of chance and hence are hit by the prohibitions of most state-level anti-gambling laws (“State Gaming Laws”).
However, for purposes of adhering to this chapter’s format, we have discussed fantasy sports in this section.] In most states, fantasy sports are operating within the exemption for games of skill in the State Gaming Laws. The state of Nagaland has a licensing regime for virtual sports fantasy league games under the Nagaland Act. Rajasthan in 2022 issued a draft bill, namely the Rajasthan Virtual Online Sports (Regulation) Bill 2022 (“Rajasthan Bill”), proposing to regulate fantasy sports in the state under a licensing regime, however the same is not in force yet.
