After returning once, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has eventually given assent to a long-pending bill seeking to ban online gambling including online rummy and poker with stakes in the state. After the assent, All India Gaming Federation CEO Roland Landers shared his utter disappointment on the issue as he feels that it disregards the 6 decades of established legal jurisprudence. For future update on Online Gaming and Esports, follow InsideSport.IN
The bill was initially passed in October 2022 however, the Governor of state returned the bill. The government of Tamil Nadu re-adopted the bill and the Governor of the state, RN Ravi eventually gave the assent. Afer the assent, Roland Landers, CEO of All India Gaming Federation shared his thoughts.
AIGF CEO, Roland Landers disappointed after Tamil Nadu Governor gave assent to ban Online Gambling games, CHECK DETAILS
Here’s what Roland Landers had to say.
“The Tamil Nadu government has passed a law that will result in banning of most online games of skill including rummy and poker. What this law in effect does is treat and conflates games of skill as gambling and games of chance.
The law also completely misunderstand technology and prohibits random number generators, which are an integral part of fairness for online gaming. This is disappointing as it disregards the 6 decades of established legal jurisprudence and also the recent judgment of the Madras HC which struck down a similar law. The Central Government has anyway notified the online games rules, and as we have said the Central Government has the rightful mandate under the Indian Constitution to regulate online gaming.
As the apex industry body for online gaming, we at the All India Gaming Federation have been engaging with the Tamil Nadu government to understand their concerns and have also made them aware of the proliferation of offshore gambling websites and apps which flourish when constitutionally protected India apps are banned, as was also seen during the previous unconstitutional ban by the state government.
We had provided various consumer protection and other measures which stop short of an outright ban. In such a scenario this is unfortunate. What is also surprising is that the State government has already appealed the judgment of Madras HC and the SC had recently issued notices last year. Instead of waiting for the SC judgment and in the meantime respecting the categorical decision by their own HC, they seem to have taken another unconstitutional decision which will eventually only benefit online gambling operators.
As the oldest and largest industry body, representing the most number of Indian MSME start-ups, we will challenge the constitutionality of the law, once the effective date is notified and have full faith that our judicial system will uphold the fundamental rights of the gaming platforms and their users.”
So, it remains to be seen how things pan out in the coming weeks and months.
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