After decades of obfuscation, clarity is finally emerging in India’s arcane gambling space, the biggest unregulated betting market by population in the world.
Two major legislative moves have taken place this month, April, in leading Indian states.
And both promise to breach the regulatory dam that has consigned much of indigenous gambling to shady numbers rackets and illegal spot fixing in the national sport, cricket.
Hitherto only three states–the former Portuguese enclaves of Goa and Daman on the west coast, and Sikkim in the far North East–have allowed Western-style casino gambling.
But now strong moves are underway to bring legal casinos to Maharashtra, home of India’s powerhouse economic capital, Mumbai.
And concurrently Karnataka, the state site of booming cyber city Bangaluru, is also seeking to legalize both digital and bricks and mortar gambling.
Although there is no federal legislation that expressly prohibits betting in this country of 1.43 billion people, now more populous than China, India’s opaque gaming space has been dominated by the British colonial era Public Gambling Act of 1867 — yes 1867.
“Goondas”
Some states have defined gaming as either “games of skill” or “games of luck”, allowing the former with winnings of prizes but not money.
Other regions or cities, such as Mumbai, Kolkata in West Bengal and Chennai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, allow betting on horses.
And amid the unregulated, yet paradoxically ordered, chaos several well-known international iGaming brands, sited off-shore, try to make both sense and profit; while navigating a volatile tax regime.
According to reports in the Indian media, a company called Dyutbhumi Hotels and Resorts Pvt Ltd–formerly operating as Mumbai Gambling Management Pvt, and based in the city’s northern outskirts of Thane–has petitioned India’s Supreme Court to revive the 1976 Maharashtra Casinos Act, which seeks to legalise and regulate casino gaming under licence.
Never enacted, and following years of legal wrangling, the casino legislation was binned by the state government in 2023.
Maximum City
But now it could finally bring ordered casino gambling to India’s “Maximum City” and open the floodgates to 360 betting in the sophisticated metropolis.
The Supreme Court ruling is anticipated before the end of May.
Turning to events in Karnataka, leading Indian newspapers have reported that Home Minister Gangadharaiah Parameshwara is drafting a new law to legalize gambling in the state.
“[We] have agreed to the introduction of a licence system and a regulation as per law. Once the draft is submitted, we will bring in a new law,” the minister stated unequivocally.
Nevertheless, as in Maharashtra, the passage of pro-betting legislation cannot be assured.
For in India, like nowhere else, “there’s many a slip between cup and lip”.
The riches on offer are as tantalising as the legal challenges are daunting.
Watch this space.
