We investigate news of the state of Karnataka changing it stance on online gambling for skill-based games in order to regulate the industry.
Karnataka is one of five states listed on our online casinos in India guide, where gambling in the country is illegal.
However, we may remove the state soon, as new laws could make regulated online gambling entertainment in the state legal.
News of the move has been published across several online news publications in India, including the Hindustan Times. However, before we jump the gun, the laws may only apply to land-based gambling, while online gambling is likely going to come a distant second.
India has had a hard time regulating online gambling due to its government structure. At the top of the tree is the federal government, followed by state governments.
However, to date, the main argument against the federal government’s attempts to push laws onto individual states is that state officials say they have the final say.
In the case of Karnataka, it is the state government paving the way for regulated online gambling. It seems that the new legislation will involve the Information Technology (IT) minister, who has been in the process of forming regulations to govern online gambling within India’s complex legal system.
Home Minister G. Parameshwara has already met with the IT Minister, and he said there is no law in place to regulate online gambling sites. However, they have agreed to plan a licensing system, via a committee, which has one month to submit a draft.
The bad news is that Parameshwara has said the new legal system will not include games of chance. The idea is to ensure that skill-based gambling is legally regulated, which means that online slots and most table games will still be unavailable under the regulated online gambling framework.
Source: The new story comes from Hindustan Times – Karnataka to introduce a law regulating online gambling.
Worries About the Growing Overseas Online Gambling Market
One of the issues that arose in the news report pertains to the growth of offshore betting sites as well as illegal gambling operations online.
According to Priyank Kharge, Minister of Electronics, Information Technology & Biotechnology, he has said that even though online gambling in Karnataka is illegal, there are a large number of citizens who still sign up to and gamble at overseas online casinos.
To tackle the issue, he has said: “What is illegal must be banned first. If any platform is legal, we’ll work on how best to regulate it… There are laws already in place, but their enforcement has been lacking”.
What is Our Opinion at Casinoplusbonus?
Plans to regulate online gambling in another state of India are not a surprise. In fact, we are rarely surprised by such news reports. Domestic licensing is the latest trend in online gambling entertainment, and the state of Karnataka is likely going to be followed by other states in the country to give citizens in India the option to choose gambling sites that are regulated.
The main issue I see is that Parameshwara specifically mentioned that the regulations will only apply to skill-based gambling games. And although he has said more effort will be put into banning overseas gambling sites, I just can’t see it happening.
Australia and the UK are two prime examples of countries that have continually modified their gambling, advertising, and technology laws in an attempt to curb players from signing up to overseas online gambling entertainment platforms, yet, all we see in the news is that black market gambling is increasing.
In my opinion, making chance games legal is a better approach for India. There are just too many players who want to play online slots, Andar Bahar, Teen Patti, and other popular casino games. If the government regulated these games of chance, the black market would not be an issue.
Yet, with no plans to regulate games of skill, I would predict India is going to have a far worse problem than the UK, while experiencing the same issues as Australia, which flatly refuses to regulate any form of casino gambling.
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