Online gaming laws India: Government imposes regulations on Online Bet Game
BET Game
Online gaming in today’s era has become an essential part in everyone’s day to day life. Everyone participates and gets thrilled with games. However, online bet game is exceeding its limits and causing a serious threat to society.
Accordingly, Ministry of Electronics and IT of India has released new online gaming rules in India. A self-regulatory body, grievance redressed mechanism and mandatory know-your-customer norms for verification are among the key proposals in the draft rules released by government.
As per these new rules of government, online games will have to register with a self-regulatory body. Next, only games that are cleared by the body will be allowed to legally operate in India. Further, as per the rules the gaming companies will not be allowed to get engaged in betting on the aftermath of games.
Government proposed rules
Equally important, the proposed rules focus on user safety. The rules are imposed for customer safeguard against potential harm from skill-based games.
Further, the rules have been introduced as an amendment to the Information Technology Rules, 2021. Moreover, the attempt is to regulate online gaming platforms as an intermediaries and place due diligence requirements on them.
According to Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, around 40 to 45 per cent of the gamers in India are women. Therefore, it is the need of the situation to keep the gaming ecosystem safe.
He further added, “The objective of the proposed rules is to grow the online gaming sector and encourage innovation. As per the principles laid under the rule, wagering on the outcome of a game will not be allowed. All online gaming companies will have to register with the self-regulatory body that will decide on the action required to be taken as per the rules”.
Self-regulatory body
The self-regulatory body will have a board of directors with five members. These members would be from diverse fields including online gaming, public policy, IT, psychology and medicine.
The body must ensure that the registered games don’t have anything which is not in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order, or incites the commission of any cognizable offence.
More power to it
Chandrasekhar said that going forward with public norms, the government may also regulate the content of online gaming. He further added and “ensure that the games do not have violent, addictive or sexual content”.
He also added that there could be more than one self-regulatory body. Furthermore, all of them will have to inform the Centre about the online games they have registered. In addition, along with a report detailing the criteria for registering a certain game.
Revenue generated
The revenue of the Indian mobile gaming industry is expected to be $1.5 billion in 2022. Henceforth, it is estimated to reach $5 billion in 2025.
As per compound annual growth rate, the industry of India grew at 38 per cent from 2017-2020. However, the industry grew at 8 per cent in China and 10 per cent in the US.
It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15 per cent to reach Rs 153 billion in revenue by 2024, as per a report by VC firm Sequoia and management consulting company BCG.
Describing online gaming as “a very important piece of the start-up ecosystem and a part of the goal of the 1-trillion dollar economy”, Chandrasekhar said the government will work hard to ensure all opportunities are provided to Indian start-ups.
Like an intermediary, online gaming firms will be required to undertake additional due diligence, including KYC of users, transparent withdrawal and refund of money, and a fair distribution of winnings. For KYC, they will have to follow norms that are laid down for entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
