A nationwide blanket ban on real-money gaming (RMG) platforms in India is now all but certain after The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, August 21, by means of a voice vote. The passage of the Bill took a little over an hour. The Lok Sabha had cleared the Bill on Wednesday. It will become law once it receives the President’s assent.
The Bill seeks “to prohibit the offering, operation, facilitation, advertisement, promotion and participation in online money games,” targeting companies behind fantasy sports and card games that allow users to stake money for rewards with the risk of losses.
The sweeping ban not only potentially puts an end to the legal cover secured by RMG firms through multiple court rulings but also marks a clear break from the past for the Indian government in terms of policy. The IT Ministry’s earlier pro-industry rules had proposed a self-regulatory framework for online gaming in India, but implementation proved difficult amid concerns over the gaming industry policing itself.
On the other hand, the provisions of the Bill pave the way for the promotion of e-sports as a legitimate competitive sport, alongside ‘online social games’ that may charge subscription or access fees, provided they do not involve stakes or wagers.
However enforcing the ban on RMG platforms may prove challenging, as illegal betting sites and gambling apps have previously evaded restrictions by switching domains, using mirror websites, changing bank providers, using mule bank accounts, and relying on untraceable cryptocurrency wallets.
Enforcing the ban
As per the legislation, “No person shall offer, aid, abet, induce or otherwise indulge or engage in the offering of online money game and online money gaming service,” failing which they could be imprisoned for up to three years and penalised Rs 1 crore.
This would make it illegal for internet service providers (ISPs) and web-hosting services to support RMG platforms such as Dream11, Mobile Premier League (MPL), Winzo, etc. It would also force Apple and Google to remove such apps from their respective app stores.
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The legislation also prohibits banks and financial institutions from facilitating financial transactions on such platforms.Those promoting RMG platforms, such as social media influencers and celebrities, also face jail time of two years and a penalty of Rs 50 lakh. Social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and X as well as communication apps, search engines, and any other form of media platform could also be held liable for failing to curb ads from RMG firms.
To investigate offences under the legislation, the online gaming law empowers authorised officials to carry out search operations at physical and virtual places, even without a warrant.
Concerns around the ban
One of the main concerns is that banning all RMG platforms would drive players deeper into the dark web. “The illegal market, currently estimated at over USD 100 billion annually, poses significant risks to tax collections and national security, exploiting payment channels like UPI mule accounts, hawala networks, and cryptocurrencies,” Kazim Rizvi, founding director, The Dialogue, told The Indian Express.
“Cutting off the legitimate RMG industry through prohibitive regulation will not curb such illicit activity, rather, it would drive players further into these shadow markets, amplifying fiscal losses and regulatory challenges,” he added.
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The cumulative size of illegal betting firms was estimated at Rs 8.2 lakh crore, according to a 2024 report by Think Change Forum, an independent think tank. Another report published by Digital India Foundation (DIF) in March 2025 found that four online gambling platforms – Parimatch, Stake, 1xBet, and Batery Bet – saw over 1.6 billion visits from Indian users in a span of three months.
Online casinos, gambling and betting apps were deemed illegal as they were considered to be games of chance. Rummy games and fantasy sports apps were permissible as the courts had held that they were games of skill. However, the new law moves past this distinction as its provisions apply to all online money gaming platforms, irrespective of whether they are games of skill or chance.
“It wipes out domestic companies that the government could regulate, and opens the door for illegal offshore betting and gambling entities to exploit and defraud users further,” Meghna Bal, director of Esya Centre, opined.
Technical obstacles facing the ban
The new online gaming law suggests that RMG platforms will be blocked through orders issued under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, similar to the blocking of illegal betting and gambling sites.
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Last month, the IT Ministry informed Parliament that it has blocked 1,524 gambling and betting websites and mobile apps since 2022, using powers under the IT Act, 2000 and the IGST Act, 2017. However, prohibiting access to these platforms has been difficult as they use tactics such as:
Domain switching: Offshore gambling websites frequently evade restrictions by switching domains to stay online. For instance, three different mirror websites of online betting platform Parimatch (such as pari-match-in.com, pari-bet.in, and pari-matchin.com) saw 266 million visits from Indian users over three months, as per the DIF report. “Moreover, during account creation, we discovered that the same login credentials worked across multiple mirror sites,” it added.
Mule bank accounts: These are bank accounts that are often rented from small vendors and may belong to unsuspecting individuals. Gambling platforms use such mule bank accounts to covertly move money and route it outside India. These accounts threaten to weaken the legislation’s payment blocking provisions and risk penalising innocent account holders rather than the outlawed platforms themselves.
Advanced digital marketing strategies: While popular influencers with more than a million or so followers may be easily identified and penalised under the new online gaming law, betting companies such as Stake reportedly promote their platform by relying on a network of micro and nano influencers who may be harder to trace. The law also does not make an exception for influencers or celebrities whose likeness has been used to promote RMG platforms without their consent.
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Direct communication: Direct calls or messages guiding users to specific URLs may also keep their services visible and accessible to Indian users despite the official ban.
The IT Ministry may notify additional rules in order to carry out the provisions of the new online gaming law. A key area requiring clarity, according to Vikram Jeet Singh, a partner at law firm BTG Advaya, is how websites and apps offering online money games will be identified.
“A game developer will always strongly argue that their game is not subject to the prohibition, for any number of reasons. If there is a dispute on whether an online game is an online money game, the government should clarify what authority (or court) will settle the dispute. There are ‘in game purchases’ available in most games, and it is not clear if these or other ‘micro-transactions’ in games are now prohibited,” he told The Indian Express.