India’s Supreme Court has agreed to begin final hearings on petitions challenging the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, the law that took effect on 1 May and imposed a nationwide ban on online real-money games.
The wider legal challenge is led by Dr. K. A. Paul. The petitioners argue that the blanket ban could conflict with protections for lawful business activity.
A separate public-interest petition from the Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change will also be heard. It asks the court to direct the central government to stop platforms that allegedly market gambling products as social gaming or e-sports.
The Act was passed by Parliament on 21 August 2025 and received presidential assent the next day. The official text says it is Act No. 32 of 2025 and was meant to create a uniform national framework for online money gaming.
It applies across India, including services offered from outside the country, and defines an online money game as one played for fees, deposits or other stakes in expectation of monetary or other enrichment. The law expressly excludes e-sports from that definition and separately defines online social games as non-monetary games.
The case description says the statute ends the long-standing distinction between games of skill and games of chance for this purpose. It covers all online real-money games regardless of skill, while sections 3 and 4 provide for non-monetary e-sports and online social games.
The law bars offering, aiding, promoting or advertising online money games, and it also blocks banks and other financial intermediaries from processing related payments. Penalties include up to three years in prison or a fine of up to one crore rupees for offering such services, up to two years or fifty lakh rupees for advertisements, and up to three years or one crore rupees for handling the funds.
The statute also creates an Online Gaming Authority, or allows the government to designate an existing agency, to decide after inquiry whether a game is an online money game. The government says the 2026 rules will operationalise the act and add a transparent registration and grievance-redress system.
In a press release on the rules, the government said India’s online gaming market generated INR 232 billion in 2024, with 77% of revenue coming from transaction-based games. It said the sector is projected to grow at an 11% compound annual rate to INR 316 billion by 2027, and estimated that about 450 million people have been affected by online money gaming platforms, with losses of more than Rs 20,000 crore.
