Experts Meet the Proposed Online Gaming Regulation Bill with Excitement

“It’s funny how much of a “legal nerd” I have become throughout the years of working with regulated gambling markets and India. So much so that when a new gaming bill such as The Online Gaming (Regulation) Bill, 2022 is introduced, I get genuinely excited,” exclaims Felicia Wijkander, Chief Editor at SevenJackpots, India’s largest casino comparison platform, and an expert in the field of gaming regulations with work experience in many jurisdictions around the world.

Felicia’s excitement is well justified, as the tabling of the bill could signal India’s U-turn from ineffective blanket bans imposed for brief periods by states to a real safe gaming environment in the whole country under a contemporary regulatory framework.

The Bill in question was proposed in the Lok Sabha on the 1st of April this year and aims at the establishment of a Central Online Gaming Commission and a licensing regime over gaming websites and servers.

The Commission will be tasked to design the rules for gaming operators in India and to oversee all activities in the sector. Among the Commission’s responsibilities will be also to grant, suspend and revoke licences, as well as to propose adequate measures to limit illegal gambling and gaming.

“This is vastly different from blanket bans, as, let’s face it, with today’s possibilities of using VPNs and cryptocurrencies to avoid online detection, players will play no matter if there’s a ban or not. The option for players in a “blanket ban market” is foreign casinos, which means that money will seep out from India into the pockets of offshore gaming companies,” gaming expert Felicia Wijkander explains.

The other option that players in a “blanket ban market” have is illegal gambling and betting, where the money flows into the pockets of black marketeers and other criminal elements, leaving the player with no protection whatsoever against problem gaming, addiction, accumulating large debt and other associated risks.

Pros and Cons of the Proposed Bill

As perhaps anything in life and society, the proposed Online Gaming (Regulation) Bill, 2022 has its pros and cons. Luckily, there is a chance a great deal of the bill’s deficiencies to be corrected before it gets voted and notified, hoping, of course, that India’s political parties will have the will to adopt the act in parliament in order to ensure a safe gaming environment for desi players, along with tax revenues and new job creation.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of the proposed bill is that it hasn’t been composed in the 19th century like the Public Gambling Act of 1867. As Felicia writes, “It’s clear that an act created over a century ago will be flawed in today’s digital society.”

“The new bill is therefore optimized for the online gaming habits of today’s Indian players. It fully acknowledges online gaming and gambling and also discards the unclear, confusing, and unfair categorization of “skill” and “chance” based games present in the current act. Updating the national laws regarding gaming will mean a new benchmark for gaming all over the country,” she adds.

On the other hand, the proposed gaming regulation legislation does suffer from a number of flaws, including the peculiar failure to make a difference between casual gaming and real money gaming.

“In short, an online casino shouldn’t be regulated in the same way as, for example, a gaming platform offering a first-person shooter game with optional real money features. These games are widely different, and trying to fit them under one umbrella is a recipe for disaster,” Felicia writes on the subject.

Another major deficiency of the bill is the little to virtually no attention it pays to player protection rules and mechanisms. For example, nothing in the bill mentions KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures or user and age verification with Aadhar digital ID cards.

There are also no provisions for the creation of a national-level self-exclusion program, no rules regarding marketing and advertising, and no game or spending limitations, or any other responsible gaming mechanisms.

On the financial level, the bill fails to address anti-money laundering (AML) and source of income (SOI) aspects.

Hopefully, India will stand on the side of innovation and growth and will succeed in the creation of a safe gaming environment with a robust regulatory framework focused on player protection.

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