Supreme Court (File photo) Tamil Nadu government has moved the Supreme Court against the Madras High Court order which had allowed online real money gaming. Terming the addiction to gambling as the reason behind many crimes, suicides and social ruin; the state government cited larger public interest to restore its ban on online real money games, which was struck down by the Madras High Court in August this year.
The state government claimed that the High Court had wrongly allowed online real money gaming, and maintained that the amended Tamil Nadu Gaming Act was a reasonable and proportionate restriction imposed in public interest. Contending that online games led to huge financial losses which led to many players resorting to crime to pay debts, the state government cited examples of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala which had sought to ban online rummy with financial stakes.
On 3rd August, the Madras High Court has revoked the state’s law which banned online games, including online rummy and online poker with stakes. The 2-judge bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Ramamoorthy quashed the amendment to the Tamil Nadu Gaming Act which had banned online real money games, observing that a wide-ranging, complete ban on online games is disproportionate and irrational.
While luck-based sports like betting and gambling continue to be banned as per Public Gambling Act 1867, the Supreme Court of India in 1968 had held that Rummy is a game of skill and ruled in 1996 that horse-racing is a skill-based sport. As the online gaming companies claimed that Rummy is allowed to be played physically in clubs and can’t be selectively banned online, the state government had maintained that playing a skill-based game with money at stake amounts to gambling.
Last year, the Madras High Court had stressed upon the need for a regulatory framework for online sports to curb illegal activity. In absence of a proper legislation, fate of various skill-based games in India has seen a chequered history. For instance, the legal status of Poker continues to be in doubt, as the Gujarat High Court had termed […]
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