Republic of India
India has gone from the most argued-over grey market in Asia to an outright prohibition. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 bans online money games of every kind, collapsing the decades-old skill versus chance distinction that fantasy sports, rummy and poker operators had relied on and that Indian courts had repeatedly upheld. It received assent on 22 August 2025 and came into force on 1 May 2026 with the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026, which set up the Online Gaming Authority of India. Advertising and payment processing are caught too, so the ban reaches the distribution and banking layers rather than operators alone, and it applies to a sector that had attracted substantial domestic and foreign investment on the strength of the skill-game position. Gambling remains a State subject under the Constitution, so state statutes descended from the Public Gambling Act, 1867 still apply underneath the federal ban, and the interaction between the two is unsettled. A consolidated constitutional challenge is pending in the Supreme Court while the ban operates, which means the position recorded here is the law in force but not necessarily the law that will settle.
The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025
The Public Gambling Act, 1867
Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2026
Constitutional challenge to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (T.C.(C) No. 133/2025)
High Court petitions were transferred to the Supreme Court in September 2025 and consolidated. Petitioners argue the blanket prohibition on online real-money games, covering both skill and chance, violates fundamental rights. At the date of review the challenge was pending before a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, with a hearing listed for 5 August 2026. The Act is in force while the challenge proceeds.
The Supreme Court challenge is the whole story. Until it is decided, India is a prohibited market that a large industry is actively litigating. Watch the hearing timetable, the treatment of the 28 per cent GST on deposits and the retrospective demands attached to it, and whether the e-sports and social-gaming carve-out is broad enough to absorb any of the displaced operators.
Having clamped down on real-money gaming, India is now taking a lighter touch with social and skill-based games. The shift toward risk-based regulation could significantly reduce compliance burdens for a large segment of the country's gaming industry.
Thailand immigration police have detained five Indian nationals in Pattaya following a raid on a condominium suspected of being used as a base for illegal
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), India's economic intelligence agency, intensified its crackdown on the online gaming sector on Wednesday with continued
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India
Listed as the official Act text. The PDF returned HTTP 403 at review, so no claim here rests on the document itself; the Act title and substance are supported by the MeitY Digital India release, Supreme Court Observer and ICLG.
Digital India, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
Supreme Court Observer
Trilegal
ICLG (International Comparative Legal Guides)
ICLG describes the 2025 Act as not yet enforced. That reflects a pre-commencement snapshot; the Act and the Rules came into force on 1 May 2026 per MeitY and Supreme Court Observer, and the later sources are preferred. ICLG also gives penalties of up to five years and 2 crore rupees where other reporting of the Act cites three years and 1 crore; the discrepancy is unresolved.